Any successful company, somewhere along the way, has developed a critical business relationship. Whether you strike a deal with your supplier for better terms on payment, bulk payments, and exclusivity or you provide your customers perks, lay-away, and weekly specials—the relationship helps you become more successful. What happens if you disrupt the business relationship by seeking another supplier based upon local or less toxic materials? For any company thinking about improving their carbon footprint or implementing green initiatives across their enterprise, serious consideration needs to be made to ensure the bottom line does not interfere with the triple bottom-line to the degree that nobody wins.

[ May 7, 2009; 8:30 am to 3:00 pm. ] Jonathan Estes will present with Eric Henry, President of TS Designs, at the Sustainable Innovation Workshop in Charlotte, NC. BIG Council is hosting this day-long workshop at the Duke Mansion on Thursday, May 7.
For more information or to register, contact Terry Cox, President of Business Innovation & Growth (BIG), at terry@bigcouncil.com. [...]

I remember during the early dot-com days when companies were deciding whether or not to get a website how many opted not to have one. Even with overwhelming potential gain in marketing reach and changes in consumer behavior, many companies continue to invest very little in their web presence. This “wait and see” and “just good enough” behavior persists in the present day regarding sustainability. Climate change regulation is in the pipeline, and many companies are not prepared to comply with the new requirements. Meanwhile, consumers, buyers, and other stakeholders in the market supply chain are beginning to demand more accountability from their business relationships. Your response now will affect how your company performs in the long-term.

While opening a sustainable home renovation store may fly in Portland, OR, it may not have the same appeal or staying power in rural North Carolina. The concept of the Level of Greenth simply means discovering where you and your community are at on the spectrum of sustainability awareness and choosing practical, achievable goals to steadily move up the spectrum to ensure stability and the ability to follow through with increasing changes year to year. The regional needs, economic conditions, type of biosphere, and the level of understanding of the principles of sustainability determine a region’s “Level of Greenth”.

Chapel Hill, NC, April 6, 2009 – Vice President Al Gore now has his copy of Smart Green: How to Implement Sustainable Business Practices in Any Industry – And Make Money. Author Jonathan M. Estes met Gore at the Spain-US Business Sustainability Conference in New York City on March 17.
At the conference, [...]

At a recent conference in New York for US/Spain business and sustainability, former Vice President Al Gore outlined three crises we face as a human race: Global climate change, the downturn of the world economy, and challenges to security—namely the vulnerability of an aging US infrastructure such as the electric grid and dependency on [...]