Pure Growth!

At my last office job, my co-workers and I would sit around and wonder why we had to come into the office at all. On days when we were doing creative work, like content authoring, blogging, etc., it really didn’t make any difference whether we were at our office desk or home desk. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There was one big difference: On days when my physical presence wasn’t required, I was still forced to waste nearly 3 hours commuting. My morale sank like an iron raft. I simply wasn’t as productive.

If your employees have job tasks that can be performed from home, it makes a lot of sense to allow them to telecommute one or two days a week — or more.

Telecommuting is an excellent opportunity to promote greener business practices without sacrificing results or daily production. It is a rare win-win compromise that satisfies employees as well as your bottom line.

Here are a some good reasons you should implement a telecommuting policy for your green business.

1. Telecommuting boosts employee morale. When my co-workers and I discussed how wasteful it was to have us come in on days when we could have done our work from home, we all agreed that if given the chance to telecommute, we would go out of our ways to work even harder! Employees that are given the opportunity to work from the comfort of their home, or even a local park or cafe, will be grateful for the opportunity. Many will see it as an expression of your trust and work hard to meet expectations. No generalizations here: a study reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology determined that “Telecommuters reported more job satisfaction, less motivation to leave the company, less stress, improved work-family balance, and higher performance ratings by supervisors.”

2. Telecommuting provides an excellent opportunity to cut costs. If you find that telecommuting is working for your employees, you can cut down on equipment costs. Instead of setting up an individual workstation for every employee, create an alternating telecommuting schedule so employees can share equipment without conflict when they are in the office. Organizing a system like this can cut equipment costs dramatically by stretching the range of your current resources.

3. Telecommuting means less environmental impact. Telecommuting can make your business greener in a few important ways. First, it eliminates the need to commute, which reduces carbon emissions and the consumption of oil. Secondly, reducing the amount of people that are in the office means less paper will be wasted and less electricity will be used. These small benefits quickly add up to save your company even more money, while the burden on the environment is reduced with each passing day.

If you are unsure of how well telecommuting will work for your company, all it takes is a little planning and foresight. Make sure you have systems in place that will let employees know what is expected of them and what work needs to be completed before they start working from home. Search online for some web-based project collaboration services that can make this task easier. Roll out your new telecommuting program as a temporary trial to evaluate performance and see where improvements can be made. Once you’ve streamlined the system, offer more frequent opportunities to work from home.

I’m confident that you will discover telecommuting is a legitimate opportunity to both green your business as well as boost employee productivity and morale.

More evidence for those who think the current state of green affairs is an impermanent bubble!

Utility officials in Texas voted 2-1 to give preliminary approval to a $4.9 billion plan to create wind energy infrastructure that would carry power from windy west Texas to urban areas like Dallas. Experts are calling it the largest investment in clean and renewable energy in U.S. history. How’s that for a bubble?

“Supporters predict the plan will spur new wind power projects, create jobs, reduce pollution and lower energy costs.”

I think ecopreneurs know an opportunity when they see one

Greenwash is a huge problem for eco-minded businesses.

It is commonly defined as “the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company, or the environmental benefits of a product or service.” Put simply, greenwashing is the fastest way to failure in a growing industry that caters to a highly skeptical audience.

Don’t think greenwash is a big deal? Figure you can get away with fudging a few claims to win over a green consumer or two? Wrong. Not only are these practices highly unethical, but there are now watchdog organizations that make it their business to uncover greenwash and put disreputable companies in the spotlight, ruining their chances of conducting business with eco-conscious markets. Sourcewatch, Greenwashing Index, and Greenwashing.net are three of the most popular organizations of this kind.

So, what do green consumers demand from an authentically eco-friendly business? Here are three qualities to focus on if you want to be successful with this audience.

1. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t think you’ll be able to get away with selling a green product alongside contradictory products in your lineup. Take the promotional products industry for example. Many of the companies in this wasteful industry are now including “eco-friendly” products in their lineup, as if this could possibly distract consumers from the hundreds of thousands of other plastic, non-biodegradable products they sell. Don’t be a hypocrite – consumers aren’t stupid.

2. Don’t lie. This should be common sense, but it seems that a few companies can’t quite get the grasp of this one yet. Lying sends a very clear and simple message: my company offers no real value; therefore I must twist and exaggerate facts in order to effectively manipulate you into buying my useless products and services. If you lie, you’ll be found out eventually…and when it happens, it will not be worth it. Do not make false claims about the green status of your company, do not embellish facts, and do not underestimate the intelligence of an informed consumer.

3. Don’t hide. More than anything, green consumers demand transparency and accountability from the companies they choose to give their business to. Go out of your way to make any unclear aspects of your operation as accessible as possible. No company is perfect – even if your company has some less-green characteristics, honesty will go a long way with an eco-conscious audience. The more you information you share with your market, the more trust you earn. Once consumers feel comfortable with your business and value your honesty, you’ve won half the battle!

This isn’t rocket science folks. Running a successful green business requires a healthy dose of common sense, maybe even more than a running a “normal” business might require. Consumers are skeptical of green claims thanks to some phony profiteers, so now it’s your responsibility to regain their trust. Stick to ethical business models and you should have no problem capturing a deserved share of this rapidly expanding green consumer market.