Why now?

You believe you’re doing the right thing and that your way of working is keeping you competitive.

But you may want to rethink this.

Research has shown that people and businesses routinely overestimate the goodwill others will show them. Take a look at the following cases, and ask yourself to what extent your answers would meet your customer’s needs – and what that might do for your competitiveness:

• Climate impacts:

Three dozen global companies (such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, Johnson and Johnson, P&G, Boeing, Dell, and PepsiCo) have requested that all their suppliers disclose their green house gas emissions and associated reduction strategies.

    Do you know the carbon footprint of your operations and your products?

• Cost of emitting:

Governments are increasingly charging for carbon – not just CO2, but “equivalents” such as methane and other heat-trapping gasses. That means all the carbon from the raw materials, to transportation, to manufacturing…

    Do you know how much your costs will increase?

• Greening your Customer:

Even in recession, retailers have found that their green labels and energy efficient products are outperforming conventional merchandise sales across the board.

    Can you tell you customer how you’re helping them grow these opportunities?

• Growth Opportunities:

DHL turned their environmental performance improvements into revenue generators: not only do they get savings from energy improvements – they sell the ‘renewable’ credits to companies that benefit from them, either legally or commercially.

    Do you know how the environment could make you money as well as save you money?

If you struggled to answer any of these questions, you are vulnerable to the impacts of government, retailers, and competitors – all of whom are trying to get the upper hand in this field. It’s happened before – and when your business goes, it goes fast:

  • Polycarbonate bottles have lost substantial market share and reputation to metal bottles due to Bis-phenol A (BPA) – even though they very quickly found a non-PBA substitute. Competitive materials (including glass, aluminium, steel and non-BPA polycarbonate called Tritan) saw a 500% increase in one-year, and Wal-Mart delisted BPA-containing bottles;
  • When KKR bought an energy company that had committed to building 11 coal-fired plants, they pulled the plug on eight of them on environmental grounds, forcing suppliers to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
  • The bottled-water companies ditched PVC for water bottles within weeks of Greenpeace running some high profile public campaigns in stores – giving PET a free launch and ultimately market dominance.

But one company’s loss is another’s gain.

And when you win, you win big!

  • Think of the polycarbonate water bottles. When polycarbonate was delisted by retailers, Eastman Chemical’s Tritan (a BPA-free alternative) took off: Nalgene and most other brands of durable plastic baby and water bottles switched to Tritan. (And as we said above – aluminum and steel bottles sales grew 500% during the same period).
  • Marks&Spencers took all their coffee FairTrade – and saw sales rise 12% the same year.
  • KKK, the venture capitalists, ran a sustainability pilot that netted them $82 million in savings the first year.
  • Interface calculates that in the ten years they’ve been working towards sustainability, they’ve saved over $360 million dollars. Nice. Even more beneficial, they say, they launched three best-selling lines based on sustainable design further increasing profitability and market share.

If you feel that saving money while improving your environmental performance is a powerful way to go – download our Wasted! guide to calculating the true cost of your waste so you can cut those losses and focus on profitability.

If you feel that developing an environmental competitive advantage is more likely to be the game changer you’re looking for, you can contact us directly and we’ll get back to you to set up a half hour, no charge discussion about your situation and what you’re looking for.

But you may want to know more about what you can expect from working with us.  Here are our promises.

Or perhaps you want to know more about us first – click here.