Going Green Is Good Business
Going green wins customers. It is proven to cut costs.
But going green requires innovation. It is not risk free. The question then is how to set your green business goals so that you can successfully manage change while delivering results? Here is a five-step, proven, goal building process that makes money and a difference:
- Quantify Customer Expectations
- Identify Work Associates’ Green Passions
- Get to First Base
- Build on Success
- Seek Competitive Advantage, Now!
Quantify Customer Expectations
The majority of consumers are dissatisfied with green business performance because their aspirations for goods and services that cost less and mean more are not being met. That gap between consumer expectations and current deliverables is a huge revenue growth opportunity.
The path to realizing this revenue growth opportunity lies in quantifying what “costs less, means more” really signifies to your customers. Knowing this, and then achieving it, will turbo charge your business results. Have doubts about this? Think Tesla or Beyond Meat!
The steps for realizing this opportunity begins with quantifying the value and values your consumers expect from your business. Then, compared those quantified insights to your green commitment? That gap is both your competitive threat and a huge revenue growth opportunity that should be driving your business goal setting process.
Identify Work Associate Green Passions
Having highly motivated work associates is a Business 101 competitive advantage. Most especially for Millennials and GenZers, empowering work associates to find green projects that cut emissions and waste streams is motivating. Even Boomer work associates become engaged when a green project is tied to improving health or generating a community benefit.
The secret green sauce, the title of my book, is that green projects are proven to win customers and cut costs. In The Secret Green Sauce I walk through step-by-step best practices for creating effective green teams that win customers and cut costs by making a difference.
Get to First Base
Going green is not easy. For example, solar electricity is now the least cost source of electricity generation. But electric utilities have installed demand charges and complex rules to impede or prevent businesses from realizing solar’s economic and environmental benefits.
Another example is plastic recycling. It is a huge consumer want. But the small and mid-size business ability to recycle plastic is limited by the plastic and waste management industries’ capacity to deliver solutions.
Getting to first base is an incremental business approach for going green. It recognizes the sad reality that because of barriers created by legacy Industrial Age organizations, like utilities and oil companies, most businesses are forced into taking a lot of small steps to deliver authentic results.
But there is also a real advantage to pursuing many “getting to first base” projects. A getting-to-first-base strategy grows knowledge and experience. This will position your business in identifying where second base is located and a path for getting there. It also lays the foundation for the day, which is coming soon, when green technologies achieve overwhelming least cost advantage that topples legacy adoption barriers.
Build on Success
Building on success means turning mountaintop project successes into a continuous improvement process. Institutionalizing green best practices learned from mountaintop project successes becomes a performance multiplier that accelerates the organization’s operating performance.
Seek Competitive Advantage, Now!
Business is about winning against competition. Going green is on the cusp of disruptive technology mass adoption that will deliver both lower costs and superior results.
Electric vehicles are an example. Today’s electric vehicle purchase prices are higher than those of comparable fossil fueled vehicles. Plus, they require new procedures to manage their range and recharging. That will end very soon. Already, over the life of service, most electric vehicle business applications are least cost compared to fossil fuel vehicles. Potentially, as soon as 2025, business electric vehicles with travel ranges comparable to fossil fuel vehicles will be acquisition price competitive. Your business challenge is to figure out how and when to get into electric vehicles? The answer is probably now for many businesses and no later than a couple of years from now for all businesses. How you design your business’s electric vehicle strategy today will determine your future competitive advantage on cost and alignment with customer aspirations.
Why 2021 Green Business Goals?
Your business cannot afford to wait until going green is obvious. That is a key lesson learned from prior disruptive technology waves. The green disruptive technology wave is here and prices will only continue their decline while performance soars. Act now by setting 2021 green business goals to begin your company’s path toward capturing the competitive advantages of going green.
