Lay It On The Line

In addition to the Dean of Extension and the Mayor of Long Beach (and my boss and his counterparts), the opening session of our Green Conference included remarks by two leaders in the field of conservation and sustainable business: Ed Begley Jr. and Burton Hamner. When these guys talk, you ought to listen -- and I'm pleased to say that just about everyone attending the conference did, including the aforementioned dignitaries...

Mr. Begley probably doesn't need much introduction; he's a veteran actor who has been working in Hollywood for over four decades now (his IMdB entry has nearly 300 credits running from 1967 to present) and has been closely associated with the environmental movement for years now. What most people may not realize (I didn't until he explained it to us) is that Mr. Begley has been involved with environmental causes for nearly as long as he has been an actor. It all began in the early 1970s with the effort to improve air quality in the Los Angeles Basin, and a small electric car that Ed purchased because it was cheap AND green at the same time. Still largely unknown at the time, Ed needed an inexpensive means of transportation, and quickly discovered that it cost far less to charge up the car's batteries than it did to purchase gasoline. Using the savings from this vehicle, he then invested in a solar hot water system, and then used the savings from that to purchase other alternative power products...

Mr. Begley's point, which I think is very well taken, is that it took him decades to achieve the unusually "green" lifestyle that eventually got him his own show on cable; that he could not possibly have afforded the infrastructure to switch over all at once, but by finding "green" measures that were both environmentally responsible and lower in cost, he was able to use each step to build for the next one. Similarly, it would be extremely difficult for any city, state or nation to switch over to a completely "green" way of life all at once, but given time and the proper commitment, change IS possible, including some very large scale change...

In business, this is usually called "incremental change" and the improvement in profitability or net gains is called an "incremental increase" in funds. The idea is that while a few dollars may not matter one way or the other, doing something that saves (or makes) the company a few dollars millions of times every year will start to add up after awhile...

Burton Hamner isn't a celebrity in the same sense, although regular readers of this space will recall that I was once in partnership with his younger brother. Burt has been working as a management consultant, specifically in the field of sustainable business solutions, for nearly twenty years now, and he has helped companies and governments all over the world to become more efficient, less wasteful, and more environmentally responsible, while at the same time eliminating costly waste and improving profitability. I doubt if Burt has ever had a "warm and fuzzy" thought in his life; he's generally all business, and you could tell the crowd appreciated that...

Burt's address was about how sustainable business is reported on a company's financial statements -- and how much of the time, it isn't. Much of the time, the only information the CEO (and the Board of Directors) will ever see is the formal reporting, and therefore if sustainable business projects that increase profits and/or decrease waste are not reflected on those reports, senior personnel may never become aware of them, or the benefit being realized by the company. By the same token, the financial reports are one of the best places to look for waste and inefficiency in the first place. Burt gave us the example of a company that was paying for six times as much waste disposal service as they actually needed, and the counterpart example of a company that was paying to have tens of thousands of dollars worth of salable resources hauled away as waste...

In both cases, our speakers were urging the audience to stop avoiding the issue because looking for incremental ways to save natural resources and/or reading financial reports is difficult, and instead to start looking at the opportunities for change that are right there in front of them. Which, coincidentally, is what I'm urging all of you to do right now...