At the recent Sustainable Connections Future of Business speaker series event Aaron Fairhchild, of Green Canopy Homes, discussed how the Triple Bottom Line applies to Green Canopy Homes and gave tips for making it apply to others.
In addition to the keynote speaker a panel of local business leaders shared ideas on recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation, green power, food waste, and more. Our office manager, Annie Stewart, attended and shared her notes with me, and I thought folks might enjoy reading them.
- How can environmentally friendly practices stimulate the economy? Most important step is to ID what we can control & QUICKLY development metrics so that we can start measuring (metrics can always be tweaked – nothing will improve if we wait for the perfect metric).
- Personal alignment to these values
- Expanding concentric circles from there to employment to community, etc
- Collective action
- Metrics: Share the dead-ends & buddy-up with peers to find solutions (what is our least environmentally friendly practice and how are they addressing it?)Share with employees – metrics dashboard for planet; possible on an internal website or google drive. How can the Triple Bottom Line appear in practice on financials?
- Buy local (we do this already)
- Work local (geographical radius)
- Waste management (set goals of % to recycle, % to reuse)
- Minimum energy benchmarks for every job (minimum energy measurements on every job like blower door, etc.)
- Address with every client recycled materials sources (present as “what if” models to workbook estimates as part of every negotiation phase)
- Set a goal number of hours per quarter for employee training hours here
The event added a bunch of “to-do’s” to our already long to do list, but it also reminded us that we are doing a pretty good job of working on the Triple Bottom Line!
by Intellitonic