When Green Becomes Routine

16 October 2009:

Eric G. Olson, a management consultant and author of the coming book “Better Green Business,” predicts that the word green will gradually disappear from the business lexicon over the next 5 to 10 years, as environmental stewardship becomes fully integrated into everyday business practices.

Several external forces will drive this transformation, Mr. Olson said — particularly as large consumer products companies and retailers like Wal-Mart require suppliers to manage their own environmental footprints.

Companies without a clear strategy and committed leadership, Mr. Olson argues, will come up short.

Green Inc. recently chatted with Mr. Olson about the green business transformation. Excerpts from that conversation follow.

Q.When will green become an outdated term in the business vocabulary?

A.When we have an accepted, widely adopted and mature set of standards and practices for things like carbon footprint and other measures of resource use, like the accepted financial measures businesses use today.

Carbon footprint, for example, will just become another measure along with profitability and growth. Also, branding of environmental initiatives will become commonplace and less of a differentiator in the long term.

Consumers will be able to make informed choices based on environmental labeling, like today’s nutritional labels. But there’s a lot of ground to cover between now and then.

For example, Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Index could be one major driver for this kind of standardized labeling, but by some estimates, only 10 percent of its global supplier base is currently prepared to measure and manage environmental impacts with the necessary rigor.

Q.How would you recommend these other 90 percent accelerate this transformation?

A.First, committed leadership is essential, as it creates a common culture of awareness and action across an organization. And at the same time, senior executives must recognize that innovation often happens at the grassroots level within an organization. Sometimes the role of leadership is recognizing where good ideas are happening within the company and then cascading those ideas and practices throughout the organization.