Earth Day – It’s not only about 24 hours

Earth Day has come and gone but its focus shouldn’t be a mere 24 hours. Attention to the earth, ecology, environment, sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals should be a lifelong endeavor.

I spoke with a former colleague of mine from the United Nations Department of Public Information / Non-Governmental Organizations section (now called Civil Society Unit), Amanda J. Nesheiwat, who today is the environmental director and recycling coordinator for the Secaucus, NJ, Environmental Department, about the meaning of Earth Day in society and she pointed out that Earth Day is a celebration of planet Earth and it raises awareness about the importance of protecting our local environment.

“It’s a day when communities think globally and act locally. For Earth Day, Secaucus has community volunteers – mostly from large businesses in the area – participate in clean-ups and environmental projects such as completing a new community garden,” she said.

Nesheiwat stated emphatically that small businesses have a major place in community and general sustainability awareness efforts. For that reason the town created a Green Restaurant and Business certification program.

“We created it to highlight the many ways our small businesses participate in our sustainability and community goals. We also think it’s important to educate residents on the collective impact of shopping local, especially on our carbon footprint. As a municipality, we understand that we can achieve much more with public-private partnerships,” she explained.

Nesheiwat went on to say that small businesses understand how indispensably they are connected to their community.

“As the community demands that local governments do more about climate change and plastic waste, small businesses have taken a step back to rethink how they can reduce their negative impact on the environment, and people in the community respond positively to that because it shows that the business cares about the community. People notice when businesses provide paper straws, or give discounts when you bring your own reusable cup or bag. In general, people want to support businesses they feel welcome in and would rather give their money to places that care about the environment or human rights,” she elaborated.

Small businesses can participate in community activities on Earth Day and beyond by sharing with their customers and vendors what they do to help the environment and the community.

“Small business can also help support initiatives that youth want to create in their communities, whether that means donating wood or time to create a community garden, or participating in community clean-ups or school led Earth Day events,” Nesheiwat suggested.

Her thoughts are something that small businesses can file for Earth Day 2020 or anytime of the year to promote sustainability for the good of the planet.

Don’t forget to share your interest and activity with your community as well as business trading partners, government officials and news media. An extra amount of outreach will only help your business.

Small Businesses Can also Participate in Earth Day 2019

Sustainable practices and policies have been shown to benefit small businesses and the communities where they’re located.

They attract supportive patrons – especially millennials – and improve their bottom lines.

Consequently, small business owners should prepare to participate in Earth Day 2019, which will be Monday, April 22.

What was celebrated as a funky college happening in 1970, led by flower children in multi-colored VW beetles, has evolved into an earnest global campaign to preserve the environment for future generations.

Earth Day is the focal day of a lifelong process that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s endangered natural environment. The day was spawned by an outcry against a massive oil spill in waters near Santa Barbara, CA, in 1969. That year at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace.

This concept was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by UN Secretary General U Thant. Subsequently a separate Earth Day was founded by the late US Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) as an environmental teach-in held on April 22, 1970. While the maiden April 22 Earth Day focused on the United States, an movement launched by Denis Hayes, the original national coordinator in 1970, took it around the world in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.

Since then the observance has attracted the participation of more than 1 billion people in more than 190 countries, making their stand on behalf of our natural surroundings. It has evolved beyond politics or partisan bickering.

Earth Day has matured along with many of us over the past near 50 years. Successful events nowadays include large and small businesses.

Here are some ideas for your business. You’re not too small or large to participate and no event is insignificant. These suggestions also build employee spirit and raise awareness about sustainability.

Engage Employees:  Ask a Provocative Question

Earth Day is the perfect time to engage employees and raise awareness of your green values.  A first step is to help employees get in touch with their values and why sustainability and protecting the earth is important to them personally.  Last year for Earth Day, University of San Francisco had faculty, staff and students answer one of two questions on white boards:  I love the Earth Because… or I take action for the Earth when I… 

Kick the Bottled Water Habit

Is your company walking the talk when it comes to using bottled water?  This is an easy place to make a tangible, visible difference.  Work with the powers that be to eliminate bottled water at the office, events and meetings.  Companies that have reduced their use of bottled water, save money by using filtered water machines and reusable containers.

Plant a Tree outside Your Office

Earth Day is a great opportunity to add some greenery to your storefront, business location and community. Get your staff together to plant a tree and discuss how trees improve air quality and improve the planet’s ecosystems.

Clean Up a Local Park

You could also get a team together to pick up trash at a local park or outdoor area. In addition to reducing pollution, this can also serve as a team building activity for your environmentally conscious employees. You might even invite some partners and top clients to join you in the effort.

Volunteer with Others

There are many environmental non-profits and sustainable businesses around the Garden State that are likely to organize their own clean-up and greening efforts around Earth Day. You and your team could volunteer to support their mission on the holiday to get involved and network with other community members.

Start a Rooftop Garden

At your office building, you can add some greenery by starting a garden on your roof or even just using planters along your window sills. Grow herbs and vegetables to stock your kitchen with fresh and organic produce.

Add Plants to Your Office

You can also simply add some potted plants around your workspace. Many of these plants can improve indoor air quality and provide a number of other benefits. So use Earth Day as an opportunity to invite your whole team to bring in their favorite plants.

Create a Printer Policy

A printer policy, which could specify the instances where employees are allowed to print hard copies of documents and when they should opt for just digital copies instead. Use Earth Day as an opportunity to introduce this policy and explain the environmental benefits of cutting down on paper usage.

Purchase Recycled Paper

Is your company or organization still purchasing virgin paper (paper with no recycled content) for the office?  Take a moment to work with your procurement folks to phase out the use of virgin paper and adopt a minimum standard of 30% post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled content for all office supplies.  Better yet go for 100%.  UCSF was just able to negotiate a price for 100% PCW that is cheaper than virgin and 30%.

Choosing recycled paper has a multitude of environmental benefits, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and protection of biodiversity and native forests.  If you implement the double-side copying, typically you can save enough to offset any additional cost of 100% recycled paper.

Zero Print Day

Otherwise, you might even take a ceremonial stance on paper use, instituting a paperless day for all of Earth Day, where no one prints or copies anything. It might even make you and your team realize just how much you can accomplish without using paper.

Install Light Timers

Electricity use is another area where you can potentially make your business greener throughout the year. On Earth Day, you can mark the occasion by installing timers on the lights so that they automatically turn off if they don’t sense movement in a room for a lengthy period of time.

Replace All Your Light Bulbs

If you haven’t already, you can also use the holiday as an opportunity to replace the lightbulbs throughout your office, store or restaurant with energy-efficient LED bulbs, which don’t need to be replaced as often and use electricity.

Install Faucet Aerators

An easy and low-cost way to conserve water is to install faucet aerators for every sink in your work area. Most faucets have a water flow ranging from 4 gallons per minute (gpm) to 6 gpm. By installing a high efficiency aerator, this can be reduced to either 1 gpm or 1.5 gpm, saving thousands of gallons of water per year.

Start a Carpool

You can also get employees involved in the Earth Day fun by starting a carpool where team members can sign up to drive into work with others who live nearby on certain days. Even if you can get some people to drive in together one day a week, you can decrease the amount of air pollution and fuel usage in your area.

Let Employees Telecommute

Or you could take a different approach and simply let employees telecommute on Earth Day so that no one has to make that trek out to the office. If it works out, you might even consider instituting a telecommute day each week or month.

Replace Disposable Dishes

Another environmental approach could be to revamp your office kitchen. In honor of the day, ask your team to bring in a mug or two from home so that you can dump the Styrofoam cups. Then invest in some washable plates, bowls and cups so you can stop stocking the kitchen with disposable kitchenware.

Collect Recyclables from Customers

If you have a store or other business that customers can actually visit, put up signs leading up to Earth Day encouraging customers to bring in items that might be difficult to recycle, like batteries and electronics. Then bring those items to a recycling center or electronics company that can refurbish them.

Send Out a Green Message on Social Media

Engaging customers, partners and your suppliers in your environmental efforts can be a great way to involve even more people in the Earth Day fun. You can share your company’s environmental initiative and offer an easy suggestions for your followers to get involved in their own way.

Make a Donation

You could also contribute to environmental causes financially. Give your employees an opportunity to contribute throughout the day and then make a major contribution to your environmental organization of choice at the end of the day.

Set Out a Donation Jar

Or you could even get your customers involved by setting out a donation jar near your cash register to support a local environmental group. Then make sure that you share the donation you made with their contributions on Earth Day.

Download Eco-Friendly Apps

There are plenty of mobile apps out there that can help your business decrease its carbon footprint, from those that decrease junk mail to some that can make virtual work or meetings possible. For Earth Day, have a meeting where your team can share all of their favorite green apps and then encourage everyone to download their favorites.

Create a ‘Green Team’ of Employees

Another way to get your employees aware and involved would be to create a specific team dedicated to making the workplace more energy efficient. Host an Earth Day meeting where you ask for volunteers and then allow the team to make periodic suggestions to you for improvements to make around the office.

Set Up a Pledge Board

You can also get the whole team involved by setting up a pledge board asking what each person plans on doing to help the environment on Earth Day and beyond.

Write to Your Representatives

Finally, you can give your team the opportunity to write to their elected officials in Washington and Trenton telling them about your efforts and asking them to support the environmental causes that are close to their hearts. You don’t need to push a particular cause, but maybe hold a meeting where you share some information about a few different options, then allow people the option to compose their own letters.

While you’re at it, tell your local news media about your plans. Extra publicity for the cause and your small business can’t hurt.

After you’ve done even a few of these points, you should contact the New Jersey Sustainable Business Registry and inquire about meeting its criteria for joining the list of sustainable small businesses. Contact NJSBinfo@NJSBDC.com. An experienced sustainability consultant will be happy to speak with you in person, on-line, or by phone. You can also find out more about these programs by visiting the Sustainability Consulting page on NJSBDC’s website (http://www.njsbdc.com/sustainability-consulting/).

Successful Small Businesses and Sustainable Cities Share Symbiotic Relationship

Sustainability is the contemporary global movement that will help society and all inhabitants of this planet on many levels.

If you’re mainly focused on the environment, water and forests, sustainability will ensure their existence.

If you’re interested in human beings, their medical and personal welfare, and lifestyle rights, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals will preserve them.

If you’re interested in your habitat, municipality and country, sustainable principles will guarantee their livability.

If you’re interested in growing your company, sustainability will help you accomplish that goal.

Seventeen principles and numerous interconnected paths of cooperation will improve life on this planet. These are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by the 195 UN member-states in September 2015 to transform our world.

GOAL 1: No Poverty

GOAL 2: Zero Hunger

GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being

GOAL 4: Quality Education

GOAL 5: Gender Equality

GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality

GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

GOAL 13: Climate Action

GOAL 14: Life below Water

GOAL 15: Life on Land

GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal

Small businesses have a major role to play in this constellation of mutually-beneficial activities that will simultaneously benefit their companies, customers, vendors, communities and everyone else.

All large and small businesses should make efforts to become sustainable because it’s smart business. By becoming sustainable, large companies will impact the quality of life on a global scale, while small businesses, even neighborhood ones, will have a similar impact on the equally important local level.

Sustainability does not merely pertain to the environment or climate change. It’s time to stop thinking about sustainability as a green option meant only for so-called tree-huggers. Sustainability is a core strategic competence for businesses today and for those that want to be around for the long term with revenue-building consequences. Adopting sustainable business practices can improve your bottom line—in both the traditional and the environmental senses.

Businesses in every municipality and country can contribute to creating large or small sustainable communities. City halls and businesses, as two key local driving forces, can collaborate to create comprehensive sustainable economic environment that grows revenues and improves living conditions.

Cities offer the greatest challenges and opportunities for sustainable development because by 2030, six out of 10 people will live in urban areas, according to the United Nations. Twenty years later, it is projected that more than 70% of the global population will be living in cities. That’s where the action will be. Depending on how we develop and manage cities and their infrastructures, including business environments, in the coming decades, cities could become either a source of inclusive sustainable development and growth or a force for environmental destruction.

Cities face huge demands for providing infrastructures that meet social and economic needs, including employment, of a growing urban population. In order to meet the economic and public health challenges of urban growth and control air and water pollution levels, cities will need to shift from a high-carbon infrastructure to one that supports inclusive economic development and poverty eradication, while improving citizens’ quality of life and giving everyone and every business the chance to thrive.

Sustainable urban design’s greatest impact could be on economic performance and businesses should participate in this process so they can reap the benefit of the sustainable cities boom. By creating improved quality of life conditions for residents, sustainable cities simultaneously lay the foundation for wide-ranging economic benefits. 

Sustainable cities directly benefit businesses by attracting a smart and diverse workforce, and indirectly boost the corporate bottom line by improving workforce health and time efficiency. Healthy and happy citizens make healthy and happy workers who then spend money in sustainable businesses. According to Greenbiz.com, the justifications from sustainable cities fall into four categories:

• Increased time efficiency: Commute times are reduced when people live closer to their jobs, and the transition from private cars to public transit or non-motorized transit reduces traffic congestion. Today, it is estimated the average car commuter loses 42 hours every year — up to 80 hours in some places — due to traffic. Companies benefit when employees avoid sitting in traffic, earning back nearly two days’ worth of time every year.

• Access to talent: Skilled workers increasingly want to live in walkable and centrally located places close to services, amenities and job opportunities. Not only are companies more attractive to skilled workers if they are located nearby, but their central location accesses a greater talent pool for hiring.  
• Improved health: A physically and mentally healthy workforce is a more productive workforce. Shorter commutes means more time for people to get involved in activities improving their minds and bodies. Research shows every hour per day spent driving increases the risk of obesity 6%. Alternatively, biking even just a couple miles to work can increase cardiovascular fitness and reduce cancer mortality. A healthy workforce reduces workplace absenteeism while increasing job productivity (quantity of work) and performance (quality of work).  
• Innovation inspired by diversity: Sustainable cities attract demographically and professionally diverse talent — a major catalyst for new ideas. In “The Rise of the Creative Class,” Richard Florida pointed out that diversity outperforms ability in driving innovation and creativity. Access to public spaces, a feature of sustainable cities, fosters interaction among diverse groups of people.

Statistics abound about consumers’ preference for businesses that are sustainable. Millennials are more inclined to spend their disposable dollars at retailers and restaurants that are recognizably sustainable. This means if your business is sustainable, tell the marketplace that it is.

Among the SDG principles, #11 refers to making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by 2030 – the deadline for fulfilling the goals. It calls for its adherents to ensure access for everyone to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums, in addition to providing access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons. This helps make the happy and healthy citizen.

This year’s United Nations Civil Society Conference will focus on “Building Sustainable and Inclusive Communities.” It will be held in Salt Lake City in August 26-28.

The session’s Concept Note states: “As the complexities of urban life grow, communities and local leaders are at the forefront of finding sustainable solutions to poverty and inadequate housing, hunger and health, clean water, energy, environmental degradation and climate change, infrastructure, transport, education, migration, violence and gender equality. These and other challenges are interconnected with similar issues in rural areas and municipalities of all sizes, where activists and civil society organizations partner with governments and the private sector to ensure that communities are inclusive, equitable and sustainable.”

While the three-day session will offer a treasure chest of ideas on how to build these communities and how to attract appropriate stakeholders like businesses into the mix, I came across an interesting article that said that cities could already look to businesses rather than officialdom to build sustainable communities.

Politico held a roundtable on this topic, during which the participants opined that mayors, like business owners, recognize that bottom lines matter. Sometimes the constituency that needs the most convincing is the business community itself. In cities, getting buy-in from major corporations and even small businesses is crucial to reducing the overall carbon footprint because it is often those companies—and the massive office buildings they inhabit—that are the biggest energy users. True enough.

Furthermore, other speakers shared that successful projects need the seal-of-approval from respected third-party non-governmental organizations such as universities and non-profits that can help improve the design or bolster credibility of a project at a time when trust in government and politicians is running low. This builds partnerships.

Mayors, many of whom have come from the business community, have to fight against a well-worn political script that pits business interests against public health. The most successful projects marry economic benefits with sustainability — sometimes in surprising ways, the panel said. This group at least understood that good business and good environmental practices are the same thing nowadays. Business people know that if they’re not responsible from an environmental standpoint, they’re not going to be able to attract the best employees.

And this point refers back to my earlier point about happy and healthy citizens.

Businesses that incorporate some or all of the SDGs into their companies’ business plans and become active in building sustainable, inclusive towns will reap the benefit of greater revenue. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development anticipates that the sustainability windfall could be as high as $12 trillion a year in the course of the next 12 years. A slice of that would surely satisfy any business owner.

The goals hold great possibilities for all businesses and have the potential to unleash innovation, economic growth and development at an unprecedented scale. The opportunities could generate up to 380 million new jobs by 2030.

That should be enough to open the eyes of wary small businesses and even satisfy local economic growth.