Tag Archives: green

Defining Green Team Roles and Responsibilities

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Happy team. Isolated.Green Teams are groups of green-minded co-workers and colleagues that can provide guidance and direction on sustainability initiatives within an organization. Often these teams are loosely formed and their role and responsibilities are not clearly defined. Providing clarity not only motivates the green team but can often help businesses go to the next level with their sustainability initiatives.

The following are possible roles and responsibilities your green team could have within your organization:

  • Conduct and analyze sustainability assessment/s
  • Set sustainability priorities and goals
  • Develop a sustainability project plan
  • Coordinate,  launch and support sub-task teams for sustainability initiatives
  • Advise on sustainability opportunities and innovations
  • Track, monitor and analyze sustainability metrics and measures
  • Address and manage challenges and constraints to the sustainability initiatives
  • Develop a sustainability communication plan and process
  • Recommend or provide sustainability education, support and offer advise to other employees

Green teams are an important asset to any organization and can be a source of motivation for innovation and business process improvements. According to Greenbiz.com, The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) released a not-too-startling report entitled “The Engaged Organization: Corporate Employee Environmental Education Survey and Case Study Findings” which confirms:

“By engaging employees, companies can spark innovative changes in everyday business processes that save money and reduce environmental and social impacts while also inspiring employees to make sustainable choices at home and in their communities.”

For more information about how to effectively build a green team in your organization, contact us.

Promoting Sustainable Behaviors in Your Organization

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Businesses often overlook one simple fact concerning sustainability education, human behaviors are not always rational. Behaviors tend to be based on emotion and culture. A classic example of this is cigarette smoking. Despite the clear negative effects of smoking and the highly visible warning labels, every year people still choose to start doing it.

When attempting to promote sustainable behaviors among employees, you can learn from this recognition that people do not always make rational decisions. When educating employees about your sustainability program, you not only need to give them facts and information but also identify the behaviors you want to change.  This is where the concept of social marketing to promote green behaviors will benefit your business.

According to Doug McKenzi-Mohr, author of Fostering Sustainable Behavior: Community Based Social Marketing, he cites three 3 steps to getting the change you want:

  1. Identify the Behaviors: Organizations need to clearly identify the behaviors they want changed as it relates to their sustainability program. For example, do you want your employee to turn off their computer at night OR do you want them to turn off the power strip that turns off all their equipment.
  2. Identify the Barriers and Benefits: Once a behavior is identified, then it is important to understand what barriers they are to doing that behavior. If we take the example of turning off their computer, a barrier might be that IT department encourages employees to keep their computer on so they can do updates to systems. Identifying benefits, is being clear to see what is in it for the employee and/or organization. With our computer example, an organization can save over $100 per computer, per year if turned off at night.
  3. Develop Strategies: Once behaviors have been identified with the barriers and benefits, then building a strategy and plan of action to adopt those practices is the final step. A successful plan will change the culture and the types of behaviors that are emotionally gratifying to your employees.

Here at eco-officiency we are at the cutting edge of fostering sustainable behaviors and understand the psychology behind promoting real change. Contact us for more on how we will help craft and implement a successful plan.

Denver Sustainability Park: A Living Vision For Our Future

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If you are lucky enough to live in the Denver area or if you are planning a visit, there is an amazing thing happening on 3 acres located at Lawrence and 25th Streets in Denver’s downtown. There is a living, breathing learning experience that can teach you how to re-imagine our urban living environments.  You will experience a hands-on demonstration of alternative building designs, urban gardening solutions, the newest water saving technologies and the list goes on.

Denver’s Sustainability Park is a collaboration of the Denver Housing Authority ( (DHA) and The Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES).   Along with active community involvement, they have created an innovative approach to teaching our community how to lessen it’s carbon footprint and learn new sustainable ways to approach old problems.

The variety of sustainability solutions presented here is worth a number of visits just to make sure you are seeing it all.  From a composting demonstration area to a Permaculture Garden the exhibitions are scattered throughout the three acre park.  You can visit the urban garden or learn about options for efficient use of resources.  One can imagine the fantastic resource for our schools to support their sustainability curriculums. The students are sure to be inspired and could even discover a new career choice after visiting the park.

As a local business in the Denver community, you can learn about energy efficient building materials and designs as well as effective resource management tools that can be part of your sustainable business vision.  The latest cutting-edge technologies are here to be studied and then put to work in a real world environment.  This community focus will hopefully result in healthy Colorado neighborhoods and a vibrant, growing “green” economy.

If you share our vision of community sustainability, contact us, we would love to hear from you.

Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Resources For Small and Medium Businesses In Colorado

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Here in Colorado we take the business of sustainability very seriously. In every corner of the state the push is on to improve our businesses to increase energy efficiency and support green business operations. Here are some resources, programs, incentives and guides available online to assist small and medium sized businesses;

The Main Street Efficiency Initiative (MSEI) is a Colorado Energy Office (CEO) program that helps small business lower energy costs as well as their carbon footprint.

Recharge Colorado has a resource page that is specifically for small businesses seeking information for energy efficiency, water efficiency and renewable energy projects in Colorado.

The Energy Efficiency Guide for Colorado Businesses will help you find ways for your company to save energy.  Their recommendations are sorted by sector that provides specific suggestions depending on the type of business.

Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) has a website full of valuable information and tools for small businesses.

CORE, the sustainable business association for Colorado also has a separate page for resources that include articles, business success stories and downloadable reports.

And of course, we at eco-officiency provide a wealth of resources for businesses to become greener in their operations.

Contact us if we can help you find the answers you are looking for when it comes to finding resources and information to help green your business.

Sustainability Assessments: World-Wide or Within Your Company…It All Matters

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World Leaders, environmental experts, and social and economic dignitaries attended the Rio+20 Conference held in Rio de Janiero this past June, producing a 49 page document entitled The Future We Want , detailing insights from the past, and outlining the future focus of Sustainability practices for our World. The Conference, officially known as The UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), was the third in a series of United Nations collaborative assessments of the future of our planet.

In Rio in 1992, the Conference was called The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED); ten years later, in 2002, in Johannesburg, World Leaders and invested participants attended The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). Sustainable development takes care of the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations, focusing on economic development, social development and environmental protection.

In June, the attendees committed to “working together for a world that is equitable, just, and inclusive, to promote sustained and inclusive economic growth, social development, and environmental protection to thereby benefit all.”

Are we any better off twenty years later? Have there been actual improvements to our World, achieved by the practice of green conservation, sustainable construction, and fair practice? Have we fed the poor and eliminated our need for fossil fuels? According to Rio 20+, “we” are working on it although not as far along as originally hoped.

We can see the activity around us: less plastic in throw-away water bottles, emission controls, re-cycling initiatives and practices, celebrity concerts to aid impoverished nations, and non-profit foundation hands-on training to eradicate hunger through sustainable farming and conservation practices. But the conference concluded that there have been set backs to past initiatives due to unrest, natural disasters, economic, food and energy crises around the globe. The following concerns were determined as primary focus points, in order to go forward:

  • Eradicating Poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the world today, an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.
  • Reaffirmation of the Rio Principles and Johannesburg Past Action Plans, including inter alia, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Assessing the progress, as we strive toward the goals.
  • Mainstreaming sustainable development, by integrating economic, social, and environmental links.
  • Education toward the changing of unsustainable patterns of consumption and productivity in poorer regions, protecting and managing their natural resources, where their economy is usually based.
  • Re-assessing as new challenges emerge.

Sustainability assessments are not only the responsibility of World Leaders, Foundations, Celebrities, and Large Corporations. Individuals, in their daily life, and small to mid-sized businesses must make an effort to assess what they have done or need to do within their own environment to protect the future of our planet. There will be an eventual “tipping point” when even more will be accomplished, if we all do our part.

You can read the complete Rio+20 document in the link above, and contact us at eco-officiency for further planning ideas about what you or your business can do. We can help you assess the situation where you are, and achieve your sustainability goals.

It begins with a small step in the right direction.

Sustainability Initiatives and Tax Incentives

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A report by Ernst and Young, Working Together: Linking Sustainability and tax to reduce the Cost of Implementing Sustainability Initiatives, was released in early 2012 just in time for tax season. If you missed this report, you might want to download it to be prepared for 2012 tax time. There are some good tax incentives, both federal and state, for businesses that are supporting green and sustainable initiatives. Ernst and Young reported that companies were missing some good environmental tax incentives because of disconnects between sustainability professionals and the finance and tax experts. It pays to understand what companies are entitled to make sure initiatives are in alignment.

The IRS also has a page on green tax incentives for residential homeowners. It includes residential energy property credit for energy efficiency improvements, plug-in electric vehicle car purchases or conversions and purchasing of a hybrid vehicle.

Training Employees to Think “Green”

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If you’re company is like many, you probably have employee training programs for a variety of different business-related subjects. But have you ever considered offering your employees education on how to think “green?” You know what we mean. Do you teach your employees – formally or informally – how to consider the ecological impact of their actions?

According to the article, “College Graduates Need to be Green to Get Best Career Opportunity,” writer and human resources professional Deborah S. Hildebrand notes that a March 2008 National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) survey:

… found that nearly 65 percent of the companies surveyed indicated that environmental knowledge and green training is a plus in job applicants because they are more likely than their non-green counterparts to have resource-saving ideas that can help cut costs. On top of that, 78 percent of the more than 1,300 participants surveyed felt environmental and sustainability knowledge will increase in importance over the next five years.

In order to create a successful sustainability-training program, Hildebrand offers this advice:

  • Incorporate green education into your company culture, starting with hiring and through performance management
  • Link sustainability practices to work and home life
  • Communicate the impact of environmental concerns on company growth and success
  • Utilize an effective training-delivery process based on what works in your organization
  • Incorporate green initiatives into other areas of the organization such as performance incentives

If you are an employer or an employee seeking further understanding related to the important connection between business and the environment, now is the ideal time to find sustainability education and employee training resources. For more information about embracing a green work environment, contact us.

Better Paper Project by Green America: Helping the Magazine Industry to be More Sustainable

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The Better Paper Project was launched in April 2012 by Green America. This paper project empowers the magazine industry, including publishers, retailers and printers, to go green by using sustainable paper both recycled content and FSC certified. Green America will provide consulting and advice to its members to make the paper switch.

Once they have completed the program, they can use the logo of the Better Paper Project on the magazine itself or promotional materials.

Consider Using Natural Pesticides and Fertilizers

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In spring, there is a high volume of pesticides and fertilizers being used to keep lawns green and weed free. Before using your normal chemicals, consider using green or natural alternatives.

Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are known carcinogens and have also been linked to asthma, birth defects and neurological disorders. (for more citations on health, visit the Kids for Saving the Earth). These chemicals are also affecting our wildlife too. Particularly our bee population which chemical pesticides have been proven to be one of the primary reasons we have had such decline in our bee populations. (To learn more visit E-Magazine’s article on Pesticide Linked to Honey Bee Deaths)

Here are some resources for natural pesticide and fertilizer use;

The Greenest Way to Dry Your Hands

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You washed your hands and now what? Do I blow dry, towel dry or air dry? What is the greenest option? Interestingly enough there have been studies done on this.

Dyson, the maker of air dryers actually commissioned a study by MIT called Life Cycle Assessment of Hand Drying Systems. The study claimed that Dyson’s own hand dryer produce70% less carbon emissions than the conventional hand dryers or paper towels (obviously 100% recycled paper was better than virgin paper).  Greenbiz.com did a nice article review on the Life Cycle reports findings.

Overall, most studies find that hand dryers will be the greener choice in about 95 percent of circumstances. It is the option that is lowest in carbon emissions and waste. However probably the greenest option of all is to carry your own handkerchief and dry your own hands. This is a custom in Japan and some parts of Asia and has worked well.  No worries on paper towel dispensers being empty or dealing with hand dryers that don’t seem to work anymore. You take your own drying into your own hands!