A truly green organization is green from the inside out. They’ve looked at not just the products they make, sell or use but at the life cycle impacts of their services and products. For example, a company serious about being green might want to look at their carbon footprint, which is the amount of carbon dioxide (and other Green House Gases, GHGs) emitted by their organization each year. Then they might want to take steps to mitigate the GHGs that they emit so that they offset their emissions to the greatest extent possible.  There are many ways to do this.

The easiest and cheapest ways to reduce an organization’s carbon foot print is to look for energy efficiencies, water conservation measures and resource use reductions in everyday business practices. Planting a tree is great but if all else stays the same the energy, water and resources are still being depleted. Car pooling to job sites cuts the amount of fossil fuels used to do business and that saves on resources. A fleet of plug in electric vehicles is even better, especially if solar panels are generating the electricity to recharge the vehicles. Imagine eliminating all your gasoline consumption for a year. That's doing good for the environment while savnig money. Consider the savings by eliminating bills for expending fossil fuels.

There are product certifications available and third party organizations that will audit a company’s operations and business practices to look for sustainability improvements. Green Apple Group offers many of these services and also  helps companies navigate through all of these green labeling schemes based on our expertise and experience in this area. A company can only truely consider themselves green after a third-party has verification the organization's overall environmental footprint. There are some very sophisticated environmental impact calculators out there that predict how much a company contributes to such measurements as: drinkable water depletion and even species extinction. I’m not suggesting digging that deep, but significant reductions in fossil fuel consumption is a great place to start. Or, call Green Apple Group for a free initial consultation.

 

 

Life Cycle Analysis, LEED, Collaborative for High Performance Schools, GreenGlobes green product assessment