Lessons Learned from the Creation of U.S. National Parks

I recently watched the Ken Burns series on The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. The national park system was a new idea – nothing like this had ever been done before, anywhere in the world. I found it interesting that the park systems evolved due to the efforts of a variety of dedicated individuals, not all of whom were either wealthy or prominent. Each of them found a way to contribute to saving a particular piece of the earth for posterity.

It will take a similar effort by a variety of individuals to save the world from climate change, and in the process make the world a more livable place for a larger percentage of its population. I’ll take a crack at some of the comparisons between the creation of the National Park System and the effort to limit climate change.

In the late 1800’s, the large railroads were among the initial instigators for setting aside large parks for recreation. The benefit for the railroads was clear – they would transport people to the parks and make money from it. Today’s equivalent is companies that see a business opportunity in investing in new technologies such as alternative energy, electric cars, and smart energy grids. Current leaders are companies such as GE, IBM, and Wal-Mart.

Visionary government leaders frequently did what they felt was best from the long view, frequently against the wishes of powerful interests. Teddy Roosevelt used the National Monuments Act to set aside large areas including the Grand Canyon. President Carter used the same act to save large areas in Alaska, while waiting for Congress to formally set them as National Parks or wilderness areas. More recently, President Obama has appointed a very impressive group to head the government’s environmental and climate change efforts. President Obama has made cap and trade legislation a major priority, but at this point it is unclear whether he has committed enough time and effort to make it a reality.

Most importantly, many of the key figures did not start from positions of great power, but felt strongly about some issue or area and found a way to make a difference. John Muir promoted saving Yosemite and the redwood forests, and was instrumental in turning them into national parks. George Masa was a Japanese immigrant whose photographs helped to create the Smoky Mountains National Park. George Melendez Wright and Adolph Murie were employees of the National Park Service who promoted keeping the parks in their natural state and allowing the animals to live wildly.

It will take the same kind of effort from a diverse group of committed people in business, government, and at the grass roots level to face up to the environmental and climate challenges that we face now. There are already large numbers of people working at sustainability related issues in a variety of ways. What we need now are a shared vision and legal commitments by the international community in Copenhagen and by the U.S. Congress. Here’s hoping that our leaders demonstrate the same vision and guts that were exhibited by the people who built the U.S. National Park System.

Openness and Trust: Key Drivers of Sustainability

About ten years ago, I went to a seminar on marketing one to one, offered by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers of Peppers & Rodgers Group. The main concept (which was new and somewhat radical at the time) was that customers should share their deepest thoughts and needs with companies. The companies, in return, would then be enabled to provide solutions customized to the individual’s specific needs. Only one small challenge stood in the way – would customers trust companies with their personal information?

The results since then have been mixed. Companies have created powerful customer relationship management (CRM) systems to track customer information. On the other hand, there have been many concerns voiced about the privacy of information that lead to a reluctance by customers to share their personal needs. Unless a company has demonstrated that it is trustworthy, clients and consumers are unlikely to divulge the detailed information that is most valuable.

In order to gain the trust of its customers, a company needs to be transparent about its business practices. Or course, it’s easier to be open and honest when you feel comfortable about how you run your business. Sustainable business practices (which value people and planet as well as profits) are a key way of building trust with your client base and stronger and more open relationships. Companies that engage in sustainable business practices and are willing to be transparent will be rewarded with the trust of their customers and a greater intimacy with them.

Small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) have an edge over large companies in their ability to quickly take advantage of the benefits of transparency and sustainability. SMEs probably have less to hide due to their typically shorter life spans and narrower scope of operations. SMEs have fewer stakeholders who prefer the status quo. SMEs frequently have visionary leaders who personally care about the company that they lead, and how it reflects their personal values. SMEs are able to act more decisively and react to both positive and negative reactions more quickly and personally.

Small and mid-sized companies are well-positioned to take advantage of the emerging trends towards openness and sustainability – two trends that complement each other.

Look "Outside In" at Your Company’s Sustainability Impact

One of the mantras of good management is that a company should focus on what the customer wants and deliver on that need, rather than look at what the company can produce and try to sell it. This is called an “outside in” perspective. The same kind of perspective can be beneficial to looking at sustainability within your company.

Many companies look at their sustainability efforts through a lens focused on internal company activities. They start by doing internal analyses on greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency projects, lean manufacturing initiatives, or getting ISO 14000 certification. Don’t get me wrong – these are all wonderful ideas that provide a lot of value. But a key component may be missing – an understanding of how sustainability efforts impact the company’s clients, its suppliers, and other stakeholders.

What are the business benefits of an outside in approach? Here are some:
• Focusing on efforts that provide value to your customer,
• Making changes that affect the cost structure of your supply chain,
• Identifying opportunities for enhancing your company’s image,
• Decreasing the risk of conflict with the community or NGO’s.

Let me give you an example. A company embarks on an internal energy efficiency crusade in their production of electronic widgets, in order to decrease manufacturing costs, and to make a positive contribution to the environment. If they had first taken a high level look at their customer and supplier’s needs, they might have made different decisions. They might have discovered that the customer would pay more for a more energy efficient product, and that an existing supplier was capable of delivering smaller more energy efficient components. The company might have delayed their internal energy efficiency initiatives, and instead focused on redesigning their product for greater energy efficiency. The net result might be a lower product cost, higher energy efficiency, greater sales volume and profits, and a net positive result for the environment.

An “outside in” perspective can have a significant effect on how you prioritize sustainability efforts within your company, and on the scope of their overall impact.

Only Companies that Want to Stay in Business Should Focus on Sustainability Now

Many business owners are thinking: “Is he crazy? I need to focus on just staying in business right now, and maybe making a little bit of money. I don’t have time for feel good business practices.” The point is, these are not just “feel good” business practices. Sustainability is in total alignment with being more profitable – even in the short term.

In tough economic times, companies retrench by cutting expenses to the bone. They review their phone bills, advertising expenses, overtime, etc. They should also be doing the some of the following:
• Assess their energy usage to see where they can cut costs,
• Look at the waste that they generate, to see whether there are ways that they generate less waste and thereby decrease the cost of source materials,
• Evaluate whether their wastes can be an input to someone else’s manufacturing processes,
• Review their processes to determine whether there are ways to run more “lean”, thereby improving productivity.

ALL of the above examples can also be considered sustainability efforts! In the above cases and many others, sustainability and profitability are totally congruent. Obviously, some projects require a higher financial investment than others, so you’ll need to do a traditional calculation of return on investment to determine where to focus your energies in the short term.

Another key activity during tough times is finding more customers. Green business practices can put your business on your prospects’ radar screen by differentiating you from the competition. A client of mine, an antifreeze recycler, determined that his recycled antifreeze generates only 20% of the antifreeze generated in manufacturing virgin antifreeze. Do you think that he’s got a good story to tell? (FYI, he’s not sitting on his laurels. He’s also planning to cut energy use by 15% over the next 18 months. Visit www.maxsafeantifreeze.com to find out more.)

Finally, what better way to use your underutilized and dispirited staff than to get them involved in efforts that help your bottom line, position you for the future AND make a positive difference in the world? A sustainability effort is just the thing to show your employees that you’re looking to stay in business for the long haul, and to be a company that they’re proud to work for.

For a well-organized list of 175 ideas for improving your business, visit our website at http://www.skibaconsulting.com/library.html. We’d also love to hear your ideas and will add them to the list!

How should companies with fragmented sustainability efforts proceed?

I recently attended a conference with the environmental managers of large firms. There was substantial discussion about the fragmentation of sustainability efforts within their companies. Some companies had a comprehensive top down vision and coordination of sustainability efforts, but many did not. How should companies with fragmented sustainability efforts move forward?

Sustainability at any company typically involves an “environmental champion” – a leader who “gets” the concept of sustainability, and is willing to put in the effort to move it forward within the company. It might be the CEO or CFO, but it could also be a division manager, plant manager, environmental manager, or marketing manager. Depending on the individual’s position and influence, the effort might become a corporate-level initiative or it might have more limited local impact.

The implementation of sustainability is very similar to the implementation of quality control initiatives in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. Many of the ideas for quality improvement came from the bottom up and were tactical in nature. The most successful programs, however, required a top down vision, planning, and coordination. They also required a recognition that the needs of customers and the impact of the supply chain needed to be taken into consideration for maximum effect.

The same holds true for sustainability. This does NOT, however, mean that top down coordination must exist from the very beginning at the very top of the organization. In companies that have initiated some lower-level activities, an intermediate step might be to plan and coordinate sustainability efforts within a plant, a division, or in a functional area across the company (e.g. maintenance, environmental management, purchasing.) The scope and scale of the coordination depend on the influence and involvement of the “environmental champion.” Over time, such bottom up coordination efforts might lead to a sustainability plan that is driven from the very top of the corporation.

So when IS my company "Green" enough to market?

In the last blog, we discussed that (1) businesses should NOT promote themselves as being green, but rather as being on the path towards becoming more green or sustainable, and (2) that businesses should promote their green mindset only after they have something concrete to share. In this blog, we’ll discuss when that might be.

A key aspect of marketing is in knowing your audience. So before promoting itself as green, a company should have clarity around some key issues.

• What is the value to your company’s clients or other stakeholders that your company is green? What specific needs will be met?
• What is the value to your company of promoting itself as being green? Does it help you grow sales, enhance relationships with clients, attract better talent?
• What potential risks does the company face by making such claims prematurely?

Some additional criteria should be considered before a company can start promoting itself as being green.

• Is there a commitment towards sustainable business within the company? Are green practices included in a statement of the company’s values and within its company vision? If an outsider were to walk up to any employee, would they be able to articulate some portion of the green message?
• Has your company demonstrated its green thinking in tangible ways, rather than just repackaging what it had already done?
• Do you have a plan in place to improve your business practices to make them more sustainable? Do you have a vision for what you’d like things to look like in three years? Do you have some short term objectives that you can measure yourself against? Do you have defined approaches for getting there? Do you have some sustainability projects in the pipeline?
• Can you stand up to potential criticism for not being greener? Would you be better off proceeding under the radar, at least for a while?

In the short term, it may make sense to develop a green corporate mindset and take some demonstrable actions before promoting your company to the world as being green. The level of promotion and exposure can progress as your green capabilities grow. You may start by using internal promotion as a way of building a green culture within the company. You may then progress to a low key form of green promotion such as placing a Corporate Sustainability Report on your website. And finally, when you’re comfortable with the progress that you’re making and your place in the green business community, you may choose to share what you're doing with the outside world.

Is My Company ‘Green’ Enough to Brag About It?

Many businesses look to market themselves as “green” to take advantage of the growing interest in green business and sustainability. Unfortunately, this has led to accusations of “green washing” when companies simply put a new label on old products or business practices. Many companies are therefore asking themselves “When IS it acceptable to promote our business as being ‘green?’"

Partly, that depends on how you define ‘green’ and ‘sustainable.’ The way I look at it, a business cannot be dark ‘green’ until it leaves no negative impact whatsoever on the environment. There is no waste generated, no toxins released, no animals harmed, all energy comes from renewable sources – the list is long. Obviously, this is a very high if not impossible threshold. So no company is ever in a position to promote itself as already being ‘green.’

The preferred approach is to promote your business as being on the path of becoming more ‘green’ or more ‘sustainable’, particularly as compared to the competition. You may think that we’re just quibbling about semantics, but the difference between achieving “green-ness” and striving towards “green-ness” matters a whole lot both within the company and to the outside world. If you state that your company is already ‘green’, then there is no incentive to keep improving your performance. You may also leave the company wide open to very harsh treatment by outside critics, as BP Amoco did when it tried to dump more sludge in Lake Michigan, and had pipe leakage problems in Alaska. BP Amoco would almost certainly not have received such harsh treatment if they had not placed themselves on such a high pedestal when promoting BP as standing for “Beyond Petroleum.”

Does this mean that you should never promote your company’s green business culture or practices? Of course not. You just have to be clear about what you’re trying to achieve by bragging about your ‘green’ initiatives, and whether you’ve done the necessary work to make such claims.

I’ll talk further on this topic in my next blog.