Sustainable Business News from
Kuhn Associates Management Advisors
Building Sustainable Businesses
 
 
Volume 2009, Number 2                                                                                                                    March 2009
In This Issue
Feature Article
Ideas You Can Use NOW
Calendar of Events
More About Us
Our firn's mission is to help companies throughout the product supply chain create environmentally-sustainable businesses. Our consulting services include: creating enterprise-level environmental sustainability visions, goals and strategies; re-engineering internal processes to reflect environmentally-sustainable best practices; and  maximizing the environmental sustainability of product supply chains through the design and implentation of supplier assessment mechanisms.
 
We are particularly interested in working with small- and medium-sized enterprises. We work nationwide in a variety of industries. We are extremely sensitive to clients' budgets and their capacity for change.
 
Whether it's an energy, water, chemicals or solid waste issue, our team of professionals is ready to help your business. Please contact us to learn how we can help you.
 
Call 212-343-1006 today.
 
Greetings!

This certainly is a challenging time for businesses everywhere. But the push for creating sustainable businesses marches on, perhaps with more urgency than ever before. This Newsletter provides valuable information on the relationship between business and environmental sustainability, one of the hottest topics in business today. Happy reading!
Feature Article: Sustainability, Challenging Economic Times and Market Leadership
 
In an effort to address concerns about the relevance of sustainability investments in the current economic environment, here we discuss the relationship between sustainability initiatives, weathering challenging economic times and developing a market leadership position. For a few examples of strategies related to this article, see the "Ideas You Can Use Now" section below.
 
There are six ways in which investments in sustainability can help a business weather challenging economic times and also create opportunities for market leadership when conditions improve.
 
1. Reduce Costs. Sustainability initiatives provide many opportunities to reduce costs, some of which pay back quickly and others of which require a longer timeline to recoup investments.
 
2. Earn Additional Revenue. Yes, you can earn more money from going green! Revenue growth opportunities derived from becoming environmentally sustainable can contribute in a meaningful way to a company's bottom line and provide real long-term market leadership opportunities.
 
3. Mitigate Regulatory Risks. Sustainability initiatives are a potent method of reducing regulatory risks, which is a crucial step toward developing a market-leading position in both good and bad times.
 
4. Reduce Regulatory Compliance Burden. Challenging economic times require a company ensure that as few regulatory burdens as possible distract from its laser focus on the issues at hand. And, in order to become a market leader, a company needs to reduce its environmental regulatory compliance burden. Sustainability initiatives tackle regulatory issues head on and reduce costs and distractions related to compliance matters.
 
5. Attract and Retain a Better Workforce.  Companies trying to maximize productivity and gain and hold market leadership positions must adopt advanced talent recruitment and retention strategies. One advanced human resources strategy is to invest in sustainability. Studies show that tomorrow's high-level talent places a significant premium on the sustainability-related attributes of potential employers.

6. Connect With Your Community and Build Brand Value. More and more, companies' efforts at being environmentally sustainable are transparent to external stakeholders, many of whom place a positive value on these efforts and will reward a sustainable business with market leadership opportunities. Environmentally-sustainable businesses create brand value based on this attribute and are also more likely to exhibit other forms of corporate social responsibility that also burnish their image and bring them closer to the external community.


Ideas You Can Use Now!
 
Here is a sampling of sustainability strategies that you can use now to help your company become more environmentally-friendly, weather these tough times and emerge as a leader. Keep in mind this list isn't exhaustive ... contact us if you want to learn of more ideas you can use now!
 
1. Reduce facility- and operations-related energy use to reduce energy costs. Change to flourescent lighting, install motion sensors and software controls, let in daylight!
2. Reduce water use and reclaim waste water to reduce water usage and treatment costs. Look for leaks, install low-flow toilets, evaluate process-water recapture systems.
3. Begin a project to evaluate all products through an environmental lens to eliminate unnecessary components, materials and packaging in your products. Cut down on carboard, fillers and wraps.
4. Minimize waste by reducing, reusing and recycling everything you can. Evaluate your remaining waste stream for opportunities to sell waste to other companies who can use this "resource."
5. Assess which environmental regulations apply (or will soon apply) to your business and its products and create strategies to address these issues now. Because they are highly regulated, eliminate all toxic chemicals whenever possible or find acceptable biosubstitutes.
6. Publicize your sustainability-related efforts so that external stakeholders, including potential investors and employees, are aware you're taking action. Create a sustainability communications strategy.
 
 
Calendar of Events
 
Here are some sustainability-related events occuring in the coming months that may be of interest to you:
 
New York City, March 19 ... The New York City Bar Association presents a panel discussion entitled "The Economic Recovery Act and a Sustainable Economy." For more information, visit www.nycbar.org.
 
Newport Beach, CA, March 23 - 24 ... The 2009 Green Travel Summit convenes to explore green travel strategies and their impact on business travel and corporate meetings. Visit www.greentravelsummit.com.
 
San Francisco, CA, March 29 - 31 ... ASHRE's Countdown to A Sustainable Future ... Net-ZERO and Beyond Conference focuses on issues related to net zero energy use buildings. Visit
 
Washington, D.C., April 7 - 8 ... Carbon TradeEx America 2009 bills itself as "the most comprehensive event in the U.S. connecting climate policy, carbon markets, energy security, low carbon technology, and the green economic recovery." Visit http://www.carbontradeexamerica.com/.
 
San Francisco, CA, May 4 - 7 ... The 6th Annual National Environmental Partnership Summit is "focused on pollution prevention and environmental assistance including a regulatory update, resource efficiency, greening your business, research and new and clean technologies, and community engagement success stories, with sustainability as an underlying common thread in all the tracks ." Visit
http://www.environmentalsummit.org/.
 

 
Thanks for reading! Please contact us today to discuss anything you've read here, suggest a topic for a future edition or learn how we can help you build a sustainable business! Call 212-343-1006 or email us today at [email protected] for more information.
 
Sincerely,
 

Robert Kuhn, President
Kuhn Associates Management Advisors LLC
Copyright 2008   Kuhn Associates Management Advisors LLC
Reproduction without prior permission prohibited.