The Clean and Green Club

Greening Your Business: The Hands-on Guide to Crdating a Successful and Sustainable Business, by Daniel Sitarz (Carbondale, IL: Earthpress, 2008)

For all those who think being more Green means spending a ton of money, go out and get this book. The larger your enterprise, the more money you’ll save. Managers at a large manufacturing facility might save millions of dollars per year–particularly if you haven’t gone after the low-hanging fruit already. The owner of a small retail store might save several thousand, and a home-based solopreneurs will likely save a few hundred. And it should be required reading before building a new facility or retrofitting an old one. No matter what kind of business or nonprofit you run, follow the advice in this book and you’ll be Greener, and you’ll save money.

Want examples? Sitarz documents that General Electric slashed its energy consumption by nine percent, saving $100 million (p. 56). Wal-Mart retrofitted its truck cabs with heating and cooling units, so the big diesels didn’t need to run just to keep the cab comfortable at a truck stop, saving $22 million in the first 16 months (p. 156).

It’s full of specific tools and resources to lower the cost and the environmental impact of energy, transportation, construction, water use (though it leaves out some obvious stuff–see this article I wrote a few years ago for those tips), office equipment and appliances, supply chain issues, and more. And to my pleasant surprise, even though the book covers some pretty technical material, it’s written in a very accessible style. There are also many weblinks, spreadsheets, and checklists, conveniently included in both an enclosed CD and in the actual text.

And while this book doesn’t discuss the marketing benefits of a Greener approach, you’ll be well-placed to take advantage of that (for how to harness the full benefits of your Green investments in your marketing, I recommend my own book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First).