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Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Book Review: Confessions of a Radical Industrialist by Ray Anderson
This book seemed to take an age to get published in the UK, and I had it on pre-order as soon as I knew it was coming as, in terms of green business leadership, Ray Anderson is the Guv'nor. His company, Interface, is the least likely champion of green business that you could imagine - they are the world's biggest manufacturer of carpet tiles, made from oil-based chemicals using huge amounts of energy and producing tonnes of toxic waste - if they can do it, anyone can.Anderson first wrote a book, Mid-Course Correction, in 1998 describing his decision to turn Interface into a sustainable company back in 1994 and this book, he says, is an update of that journey from the point of view of ten years later. The title of the first book comes from Anderson's epiphany on a flight reading Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce. He had been given the book after struggling with the question "What is Interface doing about the environment?".
The answer was the radical Mission Zero - the like of which I have seen nowhere else - to have a zero ecological footprint by 2020. Yes, zero. In order to achieve this, Interface developed the idea of "Mount Sustainability" which has seven faces - all of which have to be climbed:
1. Zero waste
2. Eliminating emissions and effluent
3. Renewable energy
4. Recycled or renewable materials
5. Making transport resource efficient
6. Sensitizing stakeholders
7. Redesigning commerce
There are too many examples of how they have progressed on these faces to list here, but here are a couple of my favourites:
• turning the perceived cost of installing solar energy in one factory - enough to cover the whole supply chain's carbon emissions - into a business opportunity. The result: a new product, Solar-Made carpet, which has won huge public sector contracts.
• developing a new carpet fixing tape, inspired by the tiny hairs that allow geckos' feet to cling to any surface, to eliminate the need for glue and make the carpet easier to recover.
• using landfill gas to heat one of their factories and cut methane emissions
• the "entropy" carpet tile, again inspired by nature - this time leaves on a forest floor, which can be laid in any direction.
Interface isn't afraid to fail either. Their much talked about "Evergreen" carpet leasing service (part of face 7) was a marketplace failure - mainly because their customer's financial systems and the US tax system couldn't cope with carpet being a revenue item rather than a capital item.
If I have to criticise anything about the book, it is that the writing itself is a bit clunky in places and threads sometimes get lost. For example, in the chapter "One small digression and six lessons" I could only count two lessons, and the biographical nature of the first few chapters suddenly disappears until the end, giving a slightly uneven tone. A very minor criticism, but a bit more polish would make the message so much more compelling.
But in summary, Interface is my No 1 green business and this book goes a long way to explaining how Anderson and his team did it - so, buy it, read it, buy a copy for your colleagues!
Labels: book review, green business, interface, ray anderson
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00
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Monday, 25 January 2010
Indirect benefits outweigh cost savings for BT by a long, long way
I was doing some background research on BT's sustainability activity for the Green Executive and the Service Network talk I'm giving in two week's time. Their sustainability report says they've saved £400m between 2005 and 2009 and supported bids worth a potential £1.9bn in 2009. Which means:• direct cost savings: £100m per annum
• indirect business benefit: £1,900m per annum
= indirect benefits are worth 19 times as much as direct cost benefits
So, please, don't be taken in by by the old "go green and save money" line - BT could have lost out on direct economic costs and still made a handsome profit on their sustainability programme. The prize is much, much bigger than just a few bob's worth of energy savings. The best of the best have their sights set much, much higher. Have you?
Labels: costs, environmental strategy, green business, savings
# posted by Gareth Kane : 10:22
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Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Free Webinar: Climate Change and Business Success
Date: 23 Feb 2010
Time: 5pm GMT
To register click here.
I'm co-presenting this Earthcast (hosted by my publishers Earthscan) with Paul Lingl and Deborah Carlson from The David Suzuki Foundation and authors of Doing Business in a New Climate. The webinar will focus on the challenges and opportunities that climate change poses for businesses of all sizes.
Labels: climate change, gareth kane, green business, webinar
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:33
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Wednesday, 2 December 2009
No place for tree-huggers
Running a green business is tough. I have seen many people get bitten by the green bug and then just get bitten. I have seen green product manufacturers use self (badly) printed labels on their products and not understand why they break into the mainstream. I've seen a recycling technology developer wonder why local authorities wouldn't buy his hugely expensive sorting machine. I've seen a recycling company try to jump ahead of the pack with a new processing line then lose money when the Government delayed a piece of legislation.US green marketing guru Jacquelyn Ottman talks about the 'Green Graveyard' where poorly thought out products go to die. It is a repository for all ideas that aren't rooted in the real world. In the real world:
- Mainstream consumers want smart looking products in smart looking packaging.
- Local authorities want cheap, reliable technologies.
- Political pressures can lead to unexpected changes.
Labels: green business, green marketing, green products
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:49
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Friday, 11 September 2009
Brrrm, brrrm (or not as the case may be...)
On Wednesday I was in Bedford at the Low Carbon Vehicle exhibition as part of the work we're doing with Innovation Scout to identify business opportunities in the low carbon economy. There was a real buzz about the place and some extraordinary vehicles including a hydrogen powered Morgan, and, getting most attention, the £87,000 electric sportscar, the Tesla. According to the nice lady on the stand, they've sold 1200 of these worldwide and are moving into profit.
I was working unfortunately and couldn't get a test drive. We were picking experts' brains to spot gaps in the market - OK if you're going to have electric cars, who is going to maintain them? Who provides the breakdown service? Who trains the emergency services in not getting an electric shock when they attend a road traffic accident involving an electric vehicle? While some experts could let this kind of idea flow freely, it was interesting how many found it difficult to think around their area of expertise. The conclusion was that there were dozens of opportunities around any one emerging technology for anyone with entrepreneurial spirit and, importantly, an inquisitive mind. Many of these are essential enabling products and services for the core product (the car).
Yesterday I interviewed Vic Morgan, founder of the Ethical Superstore for the Green Executive (my second book). His view is that if you take an ethical/green stance, you have to overcompensate with commercial attitude. He finds it easier to employ people with a passion for commerce and then interest them in the ethics later rather than the other way around.
Both these insights chime with the first secret of the Three Secrets of Green Business:
"Treat the environmental agenda as an opportunity, not a threat. Grasp it with both hands but, whatever you do, don’t forget you are still running a business."
Labels: electric vehicles, green business, innovation, tesla
# posted by Gareth Kane : 05:25
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Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Don't get left behind...
It is said that the advent of the transistor killed off all the old valve manufacturers. They stood still and got wiped out by the new upstarts with their fancy new technology. The same could, and probably will, happen with the Low Carbon Economy - FTSE 100 packaging manufacturer Bunzl is having to shift its focus away from single use plastic bags in light of the many attempts to phase them out. You gotta move with the times...Labels: green business, sustainable production and consumption
# posted by Gareth Kane : 05:24
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Monday, 24 August 2009
Netregs 2009 Small Business Survey
Here are the key points from this annual survey of the UK's small & medium size businesses and their attitudes to the environment.- Only 7% of SMEs thought their business undertakes activities which harm the environment. When prompted, 46% were found to undertake an environmentally harmful activity. The most common activities were storing waste (42%), storing chemicals, fuels or oil (38%) and producing, importing, selling or using packaging (29%).
- 38% of SMEs had not heard of relevant environmental regulations, even when prompted by a list.
- 55% of SMEs had introduced practical measures to prevent or reduce environmental harm – up from 48% in 2007.
- Just 6% had a person responsible for environmental issues although 28% had made energy efficiency or water reduction improvements.
- 4% had an Environment Management System in place (15% in 2007) and 23% an environmental policy (39% in 2007). Just 12% thought this would be useful to their business.
- 80% were ‘very’ or ‘quite unlikely’ to invest money in improving their environmental performance over the next 12 months.
- 24% had reduced operating costs, 20% reduced risk of prosecution/fines, 20% motivated the workforce, 18% improved customer relationships and 8% increased sales/profitability through improved environmental performance.
But the weird thing is the last two - some of those who had reduced operating costs weren't prepared to make any further investment, even though it is likely they would save even more cash. As we all know, businesses who have good green performance are doing better in this recession.
Labels: green business, NetRegs, survey
# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:10
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Thursday, 20 August 2009
Whole Foods Boss Does a Ratner
Whole Foods Markets claims to be the world's leader in natural and organic foods. A look at their website shows a family, planet, people-friendly business extolling the benefits of their products and their values in a confident, engaging way. So far, so good - the sort of business paragon we like to use as examples to our clients.But CEO John Mackey seems to have blown a hole in the ship below the waterline. An op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal attacked President Obama's healthcare plans and proposed a free-market alternative that some have described as 'Darwinian'. The reaction has been brutal - a Facebook group calling for a boycott of Whole Foods has over 19,000 members as of this morning and the story is all across the popular press. The last time we saw something like this was when UK highstreet jeweller Gerard Ratner brought down his business by joking in a speech that the company's performance was "not bad for selling crap".
Top management guru Tom Peter has commented that it would be a shame if CEOs couldn't give personal opinions in the future, but I think he his missing the point. The Whole Foods brand makes a big fuss over its progressive values and their core customer base is exactly the sort of person who would support Obama's plans. I can't see why the WSJ would have bothered publishing the article if Mackey wasn't CEO of Whole Foods. The gulf between the values being projected to those customers (we understand and care for you and your family) and the values expoused in the article (I think you're a bunch of loony socialists) makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the pavement. Result - potentially fatal brand damage, and all for what?
So, lessons to be learnt:
- customers really don't like feeling that they've been swizzed
- the press and the blogosphere thrive on perceived hypocrisy
- if you are going to expouse values, it's helpful if you really believe in them yourself
- if there is a gap between your personal values and your corporate values, don't use the business as a platform to promote the former (is that not really obvious?)
Labels: barack obama, green business, john mackay, values, whole foods
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:58
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Monday, 27 April 2009
Greener businesses doing better in the recession
According to Management Consultancy, AT Kearney, in 16 of the 18 industries they studied, companies committed to sustainability outperformed industry averages by 15% over the six months from May through November 2008.I know I keep banging on about this, but sustainability is not some fuzzy luxury like having modern art in your foyer. It is good business sense - lower costs, marketplace differentiation, lower risks, motivated workforce, better PR etc, etc. If a read another story about an organisation cutting environmental programmes "for survival", I will scream!
Labels: at kearney, green business, recession, sustainability, sustainable business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 10:47
1 Comments
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Don't forget...
...those two free green business seminars in Newcastle on Thursday.Labels: green business, seminars
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:41
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Wednesday, 18 February 2009
16 Green Businesses Make Top 50 Innovative Companies
Very interesting piece on GreenBiz pointing out that 16 of the top 50 Innovative Companies compiled by Fast Company Magazine got on the list because of their green credentials. And that's leaving out businesses with a strong green message such as Google and, the winners, Team Obama.This is more evidence that 'green' is a key opportunity to beat these economic conditions - and many people are taking it. Cutting costs, boosting productivity, future proofing against legislation, avoiding prosecution, creating strong PR stories, empowering employees and creating/exploiting new markets. What's there not to like?
Labels: green business, recession
# posted by Gareth Kane : 10:43
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Thursday, 12 February 2009
Stern calls for massive green investment
Nicholas Stern, he of the UK Government's report on the economic impacts of climate change, has called for a $400bn investment in green technologies and home insulation to restart the economy along green principles. Given the warm welcome his original report had around the world, Stern's entry into the green recovery debate is extremely welcome. Maybe, just maybe, the dream will become reality.Labels: green business, stern
# posted by Gareth Kane : 15:32
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Wednesday, 4 February 2009
A Five Point Plan to Build a Green Economy
Every political leader from Barack Obama to the head of the smallest district council appears to agree on one thing - that we should be taking advantage of the current economic downturn to build a new green economy. Saving the planet, rebuilding the economy and creating jobs at a single stroke is a very attractive goal, but it will take much more than words to make it happen. Here's a five point plan to make this dream a reality:1. Bold Leadership
Leadership is setting an objective and sticking to it through thick and thin. Saying one thing and doing another creates cynicism and distrust - Gordon Brown has made much of the green job revolution then approved the third runway at Heathrow, losing all credibility at a stroke. It remains to be seen whether Barack Obama will be able to deliver the very precise promises he has made to boost the green sector.
2. Provision of Incentives
Financial incentives for the green sector are currently fitful and bureaucratic in the UK eg complex grant applications and enhanced capital allowances. We need simple incentives to ease development and uptake of technologies. Germany's famous Feed In Tariff makes it easy for anyone to connect renewables to the national electricity grid and receive a preferential rate. It has boosted the amount of energy from renewables to 12% and created over a quarter of million jobs.
3. Removal of barriers
On the other hand, there are plenty of legislative barriers and 'perverse incentives' in place which slow the development of green industries. Connecting small scale renewables to the UK grid is a bureaucratic nightmare, the Animal By Products Order makes composting of food waste extremely difficult, and airlines do not pay tax on their fuel unlike other, greener modes of transport. These barriers have got to go.
4. Provision of Information
The public cannot be expected to make environmentally favourable choices without sufficient reliable information on which to base their decision. Experience shows that third party accreditations are required to avoid vagaries and greenwash. The EU energy label is undoubtedly the most successful eco-label in the world being clear and simple. Since the label was introduced for white goods in 1996, A-rated products have soared from 0% to 76% of the UK market.
5. Building Markets
The public sector and the enlightened private sector can use their buying power to build and strengthen green industries. The public sector can and should demand the highest environmental performance in buildings, vehicles and sources of energy. Local foods and recycled materials should be given preference while toxic material is phased out. This is a great opportunity for leaders to put their money where their mouth is.
Labels: barack obama, gordon brown, green business, recession
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00
0 Comments
Monday, 5 January 2009
A Happy New Year to all!
But here's a challenge for you. What are you going to do to make your or your clients' business more sustainable in 2009?Innovate new green products and services?
Cut waste? By how much?
Cut energy use? By how much?
Cut water use? By how much?
Greener procurement? What will you avoid this year?
Staff engagement? And will they listen?
Cut fuel costs through smarter working? By how much?
Offset your emissions?
Post your pledges in the comments...
Labels: green business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:45
0 Comments
Friday, 1 August 2008
Closing the (Paper) Loop
Many of the smaller businesses I have worked with over the years have struggled to get office paper recycled as they just don't produce enough waste to make a collection service worthwhile - a catch 22 position for a company wanting to improve its environmental performance.Well, this week I have been talking to stationery supplier Office Team who will collect your white and coloured paper for £1 a sack when they make their deliveries. The waste paper goes back into the very paper mill that produces their eco-team brand of recycled paper, so if you buy that you could very well be using the same fibres you sent them previously.
Not only is this a genuinely closed loop, but it also maximises the use of the delivery vehicles as 'waste' collection vehicles are not required to pick up the paper, so it is a very efficient use of transport to boot. They also use reuseable/recyclable packing which they take back.
This is an excellent example of how a business is using the environmental agenda to find competitive advantage over the rest of the sector. And a great solution for office based companies to boot.
Labels: green business, paper, supply chain
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00
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Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Surely Harvard Can Do Better Than This?
There's no such thing as an environmental expert, no matter what the media (or my CV...) says. The topic is too broad, deep and fast evolving for one person to know everything there is to know. But I keep ahead of the game by gaining experience on the ground, learning from others at events and reading periodicals and books.A month or so ago I picked up the "Harvard Business Review On Green Business Strategy" and I've finally got around to reading it. Extracted from the HBR journal and published in 2007, I thought this would give me an insight into the latest business school thinking... how wrong I was. Only two articles of the eight were published after 2000 and one of these is a rather bland piece on green building.
OK, so there was a revolution in Green Business thinking in 1996-1999, but surely one of the most prestigious journals on business could come up with eight recent provocative or insightful pieces on this massive business challenge?
I'm still reading it as a bit of revision never hurt anyone, but I am distinctly underwhelmed.
Labels: books, green business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00
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Wednesday, 2 July 2008
A good time to go green
Things have settled down here a little at Terra Infirma Towers after the most busy (and it has to be said lucrative) month in our history. I've said before that with companies feeling the pinch from falling orders and soaring oil prices, this is not a bad time to be offering cost-cutting services. The great thing about cutting material resource use, as opposed to human resources (hate that term), is that it doesn't cut your capacity to deliver products and/or services so as the economy recovers you're not floundering behind.Of course companies can go beyond simply reducing environmental costs and start exploiting environmental business opportunities. Now you might think that this is a risky time to do so, but both the Guardian and the Times are reporting a surge in green investment and I hear the same from contacts in the banking industry.
Just don't think you can stick a green label on a duff product and expect it to succeed. Plenty have tried and failed. And I keep meeting more of them.
Labels: energy efficiency, green business, investment, waste minimisation
# posted by Gareth Kane : 12:26
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Wednesday, 28 May 2008
The Times Top 50 Businesses
The Times has published a list of the 50 greenest businesses. Top of the List is JC Atkinson - a coffin manufacturer - I wouldn't have had these guys down as a 'dead cert' (badum tish).Good to see Terra Infirma client Gentoo getting on the bottom of the table - hopefully we can help them climb it in the next 12 months.
Labels: gentoo, green business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:41
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Thursday, 8 May 2008
Low Carbon Business Seminar - 26 June 2008
I'm giving a seminar on developing, marketing and selling low carbon products and services in London next month. The seminar is part of the Low Carbon Innovation Exchange which is a fantastic forum for sharing knowledge with the low carbon business community.If you register for my seminar in the morning, you will:
- discover the business case for going beyond compliance.
- learn what makes a product or service a low carbon product or service.
- discover which markets are booming and why.
- learn how to market and sell your low carbon products & services.
- find out what the risks are, and how to avoid them.
Plus you will benefit from one-to-one meetings and round table discussions all afternoon in the Exchange.
There's a 25% early bird discount, so click here now for more details and to register on-line.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Labels: green business, green marketing, low carbon business programme
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:34
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Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Know thine enemy...
"Know thine enemy and victory will be forthcoming" said Sun Tzu about 2000 years ago*. So who are the enemies of your green business?There are many people out there who love to see ‘green’ businesses ‘exposed’ as ungreen. I call them Hyenas as they are ready to pounce on any weakness:
- Fundamentalist greens who believe that business is intrinsically ‘bad’ environmentally and sees any attempt to build a green business as ‘greenwash’;
- The sensationalist press who know that a story entitled, say, ‘Organic Food Exposed!’ will sell newspapers and magazines;
- Reactionary smart-alecs who just want to be cleverer than everyone else (Jezza Clarkson et al);
- Unscrupulous business rivals who see green companies starting to eat into their market share. Note that in extreme cases front organisations are sometimes used to do the dirty work in these cases.
In my experience, none of these types are particularly bothered about the accuracy of their claims. But remember, Hyenas exist to fill a very important role in their eco-system - they keep the savannah clean and healthy. I recommend you use them as a spur to make sure that your green offering is as robust as possible and rebut any unfounded allegations in a sober manner, using third party assessments/accreditations wherever possible.
But for most green businesses, the most dangerous enemy is much closer to home. I have seen far too many green business managers believe their own hype, delude themselves and even blame their customers for not buying. This is commercial suicide and their business will never succeed with this attitude, nor does it deserve to. Don't fall into that trap.
* Actually, when I googled the first three words of this quote to check it, all the resulting versions were different. So I assume there's been quite a bit of paraphrasing over the millennia... did the ancient Chinese use the word 'thine'?
Labels: green business, green claims
# posted by Gareth Kane : 10:14
0 Comments
Friday, 8 February 2008
Avoid Eco-clichés!
Before Christmas I mentioned that I hated the 'hands cupping a sapling' image used by so many green businesses. Then I admitted our corporate Christmas cards featured a polar bear rolling in the snow (v. cute - drop me a line and I'll send you one next year). Well, Getty Images has done some research that suggests these eco-clichés are a turn off to the average punter.This is a perennial problem for promoting green businesses - what images manage to use to communicate their ethos and values without the sappiness of the clichés. For the Terra Infirma masthead, we went for a picture of Kalundborg, the home of industrial symbiosis because a. we work with industry, b. Kalundborg is an exemplar of the type of solution we present to clients (waste is a resource), and c. we had a picture of Kalundborg. Of course few people recognise the picture and its significance and one reader described it as 'dark satanic mills'. Ho hum. I'll keep looking.
Labels: green business, green marketing, industrial symbiosis, Kalundborg
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:48
2 Comments
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Happy New Year from Terra Infirma
As the fug of Xmas XS slowly dissipates, it is becoming clear that 2008 is looking like a vintage one for Terra Infirma. We have a series of exciting new projects and clients on the horizon (more details when the ink dries), the long delayed North Tyneside Resource Efficiency Club is looking more likely to go ahead soon and the long promised 'Green Business Bible' is due to be published online in the coming months.Looking at the business press, there is one clear message - industry is going to get greener this year. Whether pushed by legislation, pulled by customers or self propelled by the desire to do the right thing, if you want to get fit for this new green playing field then drop us a line and we'll see what we can do to help.
Labels: green business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:18
0 Comments
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
1 in 6 SMEs know their carbon footprint?
The 2007 SME Climate Change Survey found that 1 in 6 Small & Medium Size Enterprises (<250 employees) have measured their carbon footprint, but that 40% intend to do it rather soon. I must say I'm slightly suspicious of these figures, not just because I had some trouble tracking down a website for Explomarket, the PR company that carried out the research (these surveys are often done for marketing purposes rather than scientific endeavour). Few, if any, SMEs I have visited in the last couple of years could quote you their energy bill, never mind a carbon footprint.I recently did a footprint for Leaf Hairdressing, an independent salon, which gave some interesting results and lead to some employees changing their mode of transport. Katie, the owner, is both committed to the environment and sees being an "eco-salon" as a business differentiator. Certainly I struggled to find any other hairdressing salon or chain, including all the big names, who even mentioned the environment on their websites. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference over the coming months.
Today I'm talking at the Environmental Technology Transfer Club (ETTC) at the University of Teesside about this and other carbon footprinting projects we have been involved with. If footprinting is as big as the survey suggests, I fully expect to be inundated with offers of lucrative work...
Labels: carbon footprint, green business, hairdressing
# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:55
0 Comments
Friday, 19 October 2007
Green Washers and Green Winners Survey
The Chatsworth FOOTSIE 100 Green Washers and Green Winners survey has found that UK big business puts image and consumer pressure ahead of genuine concern for the environment. The survey asked more than 1200 "opinion formers" from including included journalists and commentators from the UK national print and broadcast press, the environmental and business trade media, political groups and sustainability experts. The results were:- The main motivation for UK companies to adopt green policies is to protect their reputation (27%) followed by consumer pressure (20%) and good business sense (18%)
- Only 1% believe genuine concern for the environment is the key driver for UK companies to adopt green policies
- Marks & Spencer (45%) and HSBC voted the top green winners – the companies making the most genuine green effort
- BP, Tesco and British Airways considered to be most guilty of ‘greenwash’ by respondents
- BP, Tesco and Marks & Spencer have the highest profile and most effective green publicity campaigns in terms of coverage
- Majority of respondents (75%) believe it is better for big business to own up where they are not green and show willing to make any changes
BP and Tesco must be a bit gutted, spending all that money on publicity and getting branded "Greenwashers". I'm sure they'll be taking a close look at how M&S have converted their cash into credibility. The simple answer is "Walk the Walk AND Talk the Talk" - earlier this week they got voted joint greenest supermarket.
Labels: green business, green claims, survey
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:42
0 Comments
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Anita Roddick: The Legacy
I assume that anybody reading this blog will already know that Body Shop founder Anita Roddick sadly died on Monday night at the age of 64.I never met her personally, but I have spoken to several people who had worked for her at different times. "Force of Nature" seems to sum her up on many different levels - her unwavering commitment to the environment and trade justice, and her personality and business style. Rumours abound of multiple teams of Body Shop staff doing the same project because she had simply forgotten she had already asked someone to do it. She was also withering to anyone who dared question her or her business's integrity.
But none of this detracts from her colossal achievement - to put a 'green' business emporium on almost every high street across the Western world and beyond (2000 stores in 55 countries), mainstreaming environmental and ethical concerns into the life of the ordinary consumer. No one has done it since.
I believe her success is down to one of the key rules of running a green business - grasp the environmental agenda as an opportunity, but don't forget you are still running a business. She may have been chaotically disorganised but I am told she surrounded herself with people who really knew how to run a business. She then focussed her efforts on her strengths - particularly public relations. I heard an anecdote from one of her ex-employees that when she opened her first store in Brighton she would empty a bottle of essential oils over the pavement every morning to entice in passers-by. Not exactly eco-friendly, but very effective salesmanship.
She could never be accused of being afraid to make money - the press reported that events organisers at the Rio Earth Summit in 2002 were told an appearance by Mrs Roddick would cost them £30k plus 5 star hotel accommodation and a first class air fare. She saw no contradiction between such a lifestyle, being the figurehead of a global brand (which she then sold to L'Oreal), and joining anti-globalisation protests.
Love her or loath her, we've lost a true maverick genius in Anita Roddick - and green entrepreneurs could do worse than copy her wholesale.
Labels: anita roddick, body shop, green business, green consumerism
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:30
0 Comments
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Social Enterprise: business or charity?
A Social Enterprise is a business which puts its profits into social and/or environmental programmes. And according to recent government figures, the sector is booming - accounting for 5% of all businesses and contributing £8.4bn a year to the UK economy - almost 1% of annual GDP.One of the problems with the Social Enterprise concept is that anybody thinks they can do it, assuming that the nearest public body (council, regional development agency, government department) owes them a living. These groups tend to be focussed "a bit too much on the social and not enough on the enterprise" and usually fade away grumbling into their beer, cursing "the man" for not giving them the backing they deserve.
Good Social Enterprises, on the other hand, act and feel like a business. Visit the furnishing provider/recycler FRC Group in Liverpool and you will be given a funky visitor's badge by a smart receptionist. The ethos is not just skin deep - the company has won awards for its employment practices and sustainability reporting. They do charge their clients a premium, but for a premium service that a commercial company would struggle to provide. Everything is professional - not a grumbling hippie in sight.
The same principle applies to a 'green business'. Green businesses are not charities - you need to compete on price and quality with mainstream businesses, but push your green credentials as a market differentiator. If you expect someone to throw money at you just because your product or service is eco-friendly, then you are in for a big shock. I've seen it happen many times and it always ends in tears. Be warned.
Labels: green business, social enterprise, sustainable business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:22
0 Comments
A highly accessible, practical guide to those who want to introduce sustainability into their business or organization quickly and effectively.
