The evidence is everywhere. If we don’t treat clients with respect, we lose them. If we take non-renewable resources from the planet, they run out. It’s time to look past our financial bottom-line to see how to create a truly sustainable business.

For me, it always hits me when I buy paper. Do I get the budget $4 ream or spend a couple of extra dollars on the eco-friendly, post-consumer-waste, recycled stuff? Sure, “What’s one ream of paper ?” I say, but what if every business says that and leaves it up to someone else to make the difference?

The challenge is not just to run a profitable business but to run a sustainable business – a business that gives back the resources it uses. Assessing your business with a triple bottom line looks at its environmental (planet), social (people) and economic (profit) impact, and it’s just as relevant to soloists as it is to large corporations.

Now you may not be ready to go solar, but here are seven simple things you can do to reduce your business’ environmental impact and create a more sustainable business.

Consume less

1. Switch off  the lights, the computers, the fax and the photocopier at the wall at the end of the working day. If you’re not ready to harness the sunshine, then get supplied with green power. Put on a jumper rather than the heater. Open the window rather than cranking up the air-conditioning. In the heat of the day, have a siesta, take a long lunch or adopt a more European work day.

2. Get on the phone. Can that meeting be conducted by phone? Do you need to take the car or can you hop on the bus or carpool? What’s the impact of your air travel? If air travel is essential, buy some carbon offsets for your business.

3. Embrace working from home. Reduce your travel and doubling up on equipment and resources. Or share an office space with other soloists. When sourcing equipment and services, consider buying local to reduce travel miles.

4. Use less materials. Do you really need to print that? Do you need the glossy promotional materials? Could you ‘go digital’ instead? Consider ways of standing out from the crowd without producing endless bin fodder.

Reduce waste

5. Recycle. It’s now easy to use recycled paper, envelopes, pens, equipment, furniture and clothes. Keep the flow happening by recycling your own resources. Choose lunch on a ceramic plate or get your takeaway coffee in a ceramic mug.

6. Do no harm.  Be aware of the potential harmful effects or by-products of the production processes you use. Are your raw materials contributing to rainforest loss or river pollution in the far off place they are produced?

7. Increase lifecycle. What about the lifecycle of your products? Are you buying equipment for life or something that will need to be replaced or upgraded in 12 months? Are you producing high-resource, short lifecycle products to make a fast buck? Or are you creating products that will last beyond the season, the fad or the warranty?

We have the opportunity as soloists to make immediate changes to create a sustainable business, so our business reflects our values and the world we wish to live in. We may be only one business but together we make up a vast chunk of the workforce and can make a difference.

In the next article in this series of three on creating a sustainable business, we look at our relationships with clients and suppliers and ask the question: what’s the social impact of your solo business?

This article first appeared in the online community for solo business owners www.flyingsolo.com.au

Related posts:

1. Meeting your clients’ needs
2. Understanding your needs as a solo business owner
3. Organic business: Why I’ve gone organic

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I can’t believe how many “climate change doesn’t exist” bits n pieces I’ve read in the last few days. I put it down to buying the local paper (and then making the mistake of reading it), but I wonder if it’s just the last hurrah of the climate change deniers as the world tips into actually giving a damn.

The Melting-into-the-Sidewalk-Man (above) was done by Red Cross Argentina and the photo has been broadcast around the world. I just love love love this kind of activism. It’s clever and actually works in getting the message out.

Thanks to Treehugger

No related posts.

One of the first ‘essentials’ for navigating the turbulent waters of personal change that I learned from coaching was Positive Mental Attitude. Now there’s a lot of woo woo bumpf around PMA. The version I learned was straight out of Napoleon Hill but the basics of it are starting to be borne out in the positive psychology research.

Today I watched a talk by Sonia Lyubomirsky who is one of the leading lights in happiness research. Her book, The How of Happiness, is regarded as one of the must-have texts of the positive intelliarti. I’ve yet to read it but I have read her 2005 research paper on which it draws, which looked at how happiness impacts on success. As she summarises in her talk, it seems that happier people just seem to have more of those things we find valuable in life – better relationships, better work, better health. They are resilient and thriving.

And the one distinctive thing about PMA that I recall from years ago is that, in those wobbly formative, early-days of going through a transition or change, when perhaps the vision and the way aren’t so clear, then it’s essential to surround yourself with positive people. I’d even add in now that it’s not so much positive people but people who support you in the changes you are making.

Last night I went to a community film and discussion and I came away thinking about this. I’ve been to many community gatherings before and usually come away with a spring in my step, thinking that life is just dang wonderful, and heck, aren’t those flowers just beautiful. But recently, I’ve come away from meetings feeling that I am alone. I am an alien here with nothing in common with anyone. Now, I know that’s not true, so what is it about these gatherings that throws me into the other PMA – pessimistic moping antagonist.

I call it the Chicken Little effect. This is when all people can focus on is the doom and gloom, the sky is forever falling, and even when the focus may turn to solutions, the solutions are so deeply embedded in the catastrophic problems that are befalling us that they are just reactive bandaids. Current favourites of the Chicken Little club are peak oil, global warming (or the kinder, friendlier version, climate change), overpopulation, global financial / credit crisis, global collapse, and so on. And when I’m around Chicken Little mental attitude, it makes me think “Well we’re all just fucked. We may as well kill ourselves now.” It’s not what I’d call empowering.

It’s not that I don’t think these things are important considerations in how we live our lives, but I think that they are just one small factor. Ultimately, I don’t want to continue on this sea of uncertainty, reacting to the latest catastrophe, and fritzing out my cortisol because I’m constantly anxious about the future.

Instead, I want to be able to respond to whatever life throws my way. I want to be resilient. And with this never-ending talk of the oil running out and no longer being able to power anything or go anywhere, well, it just does not contribute to that.

I suppose it doesn’t sit well with me as well because I actually believe that we’ll be alright in the end, that humans are incredibly resourceful and adaptable (I see evidence of it everyday) and that the worse case scenario is that Gaia will get her own back and wipe out all the pesky humans who just haven’t learned how to live in harmony with each other let alone the rest of the planet. And I wonder, is that all that bad?

But that’s not what I’d prefer to happen. I’d prefer that humans and other critters were part of the earth’s future. And that is my focus. A healthy, vibrant, flourishing planet for all life. We are but the stewards.

We learnt a long time ago that The Stick doesn’t work when you’re looking for motivation for change. It’s just not sustainable, and, it causes suffering in the process. No desirable means. No desirable end.

It’s time to start talking Carrots. This is what’s going to make the difference between us not just surviving, or having a sustainable life, but moving us into a realm where we, and all life on the planet, flourish.  

I’m getting the crudités ready now. You bring the hommous.

Related posts:

1. Bouncing back: Choose your response to adversity
2. How people change: Working with the stages and processes of change