Goal For The Green

Recently there was a study done to determine how to best sell the idea of sustainability inside corporate America. The results are quite interesting, as noted in the findings below.

In a report by VOX Global, Weinreb Group Sustainability Recruiting and Net Impact, Berkeley Finds Corporate Sustainability Leaders Succeed Through Collaboration and Using the Language of Business when Making the Pitch of Selling Sustainability From Inside Corporate America.

PRESS RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC–(Marketwire – July 26, 2012) – To be successful, corporate sustainability leaders avoid the jargon of sustainability when selling it inside their companies. Rather, the path to success is developed by understanding business objectives and using broad interpersonal skills to communicate social and environmental issues in the language business leaders will understand, according to a new report that surveyed more than 30 sustainability leaders representing both publicly and privately held companies.

English: The "three pillars" of sustainability bounded by the environment (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Trying to get people to think about sustainability,understand it, and then align our business strategy takes a lot of dialogue, discussion,and influencing skills,” said John Gardner,Chief Sustainability Officer at Novelis. “You can be very bright and smart on sustainability and the science, but if you can’t convince people why it makes good business sense, your initiative will go nowhere.”

The study — conducted through a partnership between VOX Global, a Washington-based firm specializing in corporate sustainability consulting; Weinreb Group Sustainability Recruiting; and the Net Impact Chapter at the University of California, Berkeley — sheds new light on the skills,drivers,and internal collaboration strategies necessary for sustainability executives to find success.

Thirty-two corporate sustainability leaders,primarily from Fortune 100 companies,participated in the online survey and included in-depth phone interviews with sustainability officers and senior executives at McDonald’s, Novelis, AT&T, DuPont, EMC, Hilton Worldwide and Nixon Peabody LLP.

“A significant part of my role is translating those social and environmental issues that intersect with our business in ways senior management can understand,” said Kathrin Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer at EMC. “Showing how they can either provide a competitive edge or respond to a customer demand is critical for success.”

Charged with integrating a relatively new and evolving function within their company and generally operating with fewer resources than traditional business units, sustainability leaders say they primarily rely on interpersonal skills, rather than subject matter expertise. The study found that prior to taking their job, nearly three quarters of respondents thought subject matter expertise was the most important factor to be successful. But, after being on the job, 100% of respondents stated interpersonal skills were the most important factor.

“This study crystallized the fact that sustainability leaders are multi-lingual. Instead of selling sustainability inside their companies one hundred different times, they sell it one hundred different ways,” explained Tony Calandro, Senior Vice President & Partner at VOX Global. “The secret sauce of success is balancing subject matter expertise with strong interpersonal skills along with leadership traits that are not easily developed.”

More important than senior executive buy-in, 81 percent of respondents stated that they rely instead on collaborating with colleagues and co-workers at all levels of the company in order to integrate sustainability throughout their organizations. This finding is even more significant given the fact that they have little to no management authority over these colleagues inside their companies.

Carolyn Kaplan, Counsel and Chief Sustainability Officer at Nixon Peabody LLP, stated, “On any given day, I might be demonstrating to a partner the link between a strong internal sustainability program and a client’s core business, working with an office manager to implement a new sustainability procedure, or helping a secretary take advantage of energy savings opportunities.”

Counter to conventional wisdom, the survey also found that traditional business drivers like customer pressures and competitors were significantly more influential in compelling change inside companies than external factors driven by NGO pressures, regulatory policies and sustainability rankings.

“The report shows that interpersonal skills trump all, and I have definitely seen that come through for my placements,” said Ellen Weinreb, Managing Director of Weinreb Group Sustainability Recruiting. “While these skills are innate, the ability to hone and accelerate them while on the job is critical to their success.”

You can read the Executive Summary and Full Report of the survey at voxglobal.com.

VOX Global is a strategic communications and public affairs firm with significant experience navigating the intersection of business, media and society. Our Sustainability Practice Group helps position sustainability leaders and their companies for long-term success by providing services that help them achieve both a good reputation and financial return on investment. VOX Global is currently working with the Center for Sustainability at Saint Louis University, to develop a unique executive training program that focuses on honing and sharpening the interpersonal skills needed for sustainability leaders to be successful.

Weinreb Group Sustainability Recruiting is a niche executive search firm, specializing in corporate social responsibility and sustainability. Clients include Wal-Mart, Patagonia, Sears, Nestle Waters and Levi Strauss & Co. Weinreb Group publishes reports regularly about the CSR profession including, “CSO Back Story, How Chief Sustainability Officers Reached the C-Suite.”

Net Impact, Berkeley, an undergraduate chapter sponsored by the Haas School of Business, provides consulting services to organizations in order to gain real world experience as a complement to their education. Together they are working on sustainability and better tomorrows for the future!

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It’s been awhile since I posted about Green Spring Cleaning Agents, but the truth is, vinegar is quite the unleashed powerhouse in your pantry, that you can use anytime, and in so many ways.

If you use Vinegar for cleaning, it doesn’t matter what kind you use, except for Brown (apple cider) Vinegar, which is more for eating and your health.  It is known to stain porous materials, so therefore, white distilled vinegar is the wisest to use for cleaning purposes.  So, make smart choices and use vinegar wisely!

Do you know what all vinegar can do?  It serves a purpose in just about every room of the house. There are also dozens of household and personal use products that vinegar can replace, saving you money. Best of all, it’s cheaper, better for the environment, and better for your health and home, because it eliminates harsh and unnecessary chemicals.

Vinegar, in general is a natural, powerful and inexpensive disinfectant. It can be used on almost anything except marble, and porous materials.

You can make a great all purpose cleaner by mixing 2 parts vinegar to 1 part water.  Or, I often pair it  straight with baking soda and use it to clean my bathroom tubs and sinks. This combo also works great to unclog a drain, or clean your oven and drip pans. For this job, it is best to let it rest in the bottom of your oven overnight, no muss, no fuss, and NO harmful fumes.

Here are a few more of my favorite uses for vinegar. Hard water stains and mineral deposits like those that are often found behind your faucet are stubborn and hard to remove. Take a cloth soaked in vinegar and place it on the hard water stain or mineral deposit for a few hours. Then wipe clean with a soft dry cloth.

Clean your coffee maker, washing machine or dishwasher by running vinegar through it, followed by two rinses of water. It reduces soap buildup, mineral deposits, and scale and keeps everything in great working order.

I love this one- to remove labels from glass jars,  just saturate the labeled area in vinegar and scrape the stickiness right off. No more sticky residue.

Clean and crisp up your veggies by soaking them in a mixture of cold water and a tablespoon or so of vinegar. Bugs lingering on your produce will be whisked away, and your limp celery will come to life again.

Eliminate onion odor off your hands by rinsing them in vinegar. This also  works with other smelly parts of your body, such as your underarms and feet.

To eliminate smoke odor in a room, put a bowl of vinegar near the source. Let sit overnight in a closed room. If you would like to reduce icky smells throughout your house, but would rather not have the  room smell like vinegar,try adding some fragrant spices to your bowl of vinegar and leave it in the warmest corner of the room. Next day the smoke odors will be gone!

For personal use, vinegar will also remove soap scum and buildup from your hair. Rinse with a pitcher filled with ½ a cup of warm water and ½ a cup of vinegar ( I like to use the apple cider vinegar in this application). Your hair will be shiny and free of buildup. This same treatment also works as an effective dandruff treatment. Just use a higher concentration of vinegar to water. You should notice improvement in about two weeks.

As an acne treatment, just apply equal parts vinegar and water to problem areas. Using vinegar as a facial toner, is a great and inexpensive alternative to using harsh alpha hydroxy based products, that are often drying and irritating to the skin. Vinegar, is also effective in taking the sting out of a sunburn. Use the same type of dilution as for the hair rinse, only use cool water.You will find it to be quite soothing.

As you can see, there are these, and hundreds more uses for vinegar. When it comes to making home made cleaners,vinegar is by far the more economical choice. Most recipes make about a gallon, and you probably already have the ingredients on hand right now, in your pantry. For pennies, you can make your own, and there is no waste, and harsh chemicals involved. Once you start using vinegar, I’m quite certain you won’t go back to commercial cleaners again.  You’ll be green and save green, while your house is spotless.

If you prefer to buy ready made cleaners, look for brands such as Seventh Generation, Ecos, Simple Green, and the line of green cleaners from Clorox, just to name a few earth friendly alternatives.  Give vinegar a try though, and I think you will be surprised at the great job it does on just about everything. Together, we are working toward a better tomorrow.

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