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18AUG2009

Stakeholders and your sustainability efforts.

Posted by Tim Wirtz

Cap and trade, energy efficiency, LEED buildings and renewable energy for business. All terms your audiences or customers are hearing and becoming very familiar with. With all the buzz around “green,” how you address your position on the environment is increasingly important. Your sustainability platform must project your environmental message across all audiences, internal and external. One segment taking increasing notice of green is the stakeholder- a somewhat loose term that envelops those from among others, the dealer/retailer audience to the supply chain, to those who own stock in a company.

A key reason for putting your sustainability platform in front of stakeholders is to keep them informed of how the company is addressing the rising number of environmental issues facing businesses of all types. With such a wide audience range, what makes sense from a sustainability perspective to one must also be pertinent to each of the others. That’s not to say that what you are saying to each gets communicated the same. What I do mean is that your platform remains the same but the terms and messages need to be communicated in a way that the audience sees the “what’s in it for me” has been met.

For instance, you may have three green certifications that make your product or service more sellable. To the dealer/retailer the certifications make sense in helping how they package that product and where in their store it is positioned. It also gives them an opportunity to promote their business as eco-friendly. That’s what’s in it for them.

To a stockholder, the fact you have three green certifications means something very different. An immediate question might be– are those labels going to help the price of the stock rise? The answer is maybe, but at the end of the day, what matters to this audience is a more global approach to your sustainability platform. The fact you have one may be enough to make them want to invest in you. If stock prices rise, that investor does better. That’s what’s in it for them.

Clearly there are many within your stakeholder audiences that are looking to work with and purchase stock in organizations with a solid environmental platform. This is another subset of your audience set and it too needs a message that makes sense. We will address this in a follow up post.

All of these examples are addressed in what HY-brid calls an EcoMapsm. If you’ve been following me you know I have blogged about it before. It’s our way of helping clients understand how to put their environmental platform together—what audiences they have, what messages make sense to each of those audiences and how the platform ladders up to the overall corporate mission.

Have stakeholders asking what you are doing to address the environment? Have an environmental message and just don’t know how to put all the pieces together? The EcoMap is one way HY-brid can help. Questions on what your next steps are in navigating this issue? Let us know, it’s why we’re here.

06MAY2009

There are two ‘”ecos” when it comes to green

Posted by Tim Wirtz

Recently I was having a conversation with a co-worker about how businesses need to take a hard look at their bottom line now more than ever. Mix in the fact that they’re feeling pressure both from customers and the federal government to define their stance on the environment, and you have a recipe for some corporate confusion. So how do company leaders better the bottom line while defining a green platform? I’ll get to my thoughts on that shortly.

 

As my co-worker and I talked we decided the position a business takes on the environment can be sorted into two “eco” buckets. The “eco”nomics of doing business and the “eco”system in which a business operates. Both loom large in all industries and both “ecos” are facing uphill battles that can be positively affected by what businesses do—if the right things are done.

 

So…back to what a business can do to address both the economy and the ecosystem. We counsel our clients that spending a little now can save a lot in the future. That’s easier said than done for some businesses these days but there are levels of investment a company can make—some merely an investment in time—turning off lights in empty rooms, ensuring industrial equipment is properly maintained for examples. Other things cost some money upfront but pay off in the long run. Either path you choose, you can get started here.

 

One thing we often discuss with the companies we help market is having an energy audit done on facilities. The result provides business owners practical ways to implement energy strategies. And like I mentioned, though investing in efficiency and renewable technologies may cost a little bit on the upfront there are federal and some state incentives to help offset costs. Eventually, these technologies pay for themselves—sometimes in as little as two years. That makes long-term economic and of course ecosystem sense. Keep in mind, these are basic starting blocks for addressing the two ecos, but you have to start somewhere.

 

Once you’ve made your way through an energy audit—and hopefully some of the recommended improvements—you’ll need to let your end customers know about the commitment you’ve made to the environment. HY-brid is designed to help you bring that message to all of your audiences and we’d like to be your partner. Questions on what to do next? Let us know; it’s why were here.

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