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 Sustainability
at Work
by
Karen Schell
“If
we don't have accounts of nature, it's the same as a business
that doesn't know how much it spends and earns.”
Mathis Wakernagel— Creator of the Ecological Footprint.
Business
leaders worldwide are increasingly aware that financial success
is closely aligned with principles of ecological sustainability.
In Petaluma this resonates especially well. Over fifty representatives
from area businesses gathered June 20th at the Petaluma Yacht
Club for a Chamber of Commerce sponsored workshop, “Sustainability
at Work”, to learn how to make business more ecologically
friendly. The event was cosponsored by the North Bay Technology
Roundtable.
Ed
Quevedo and Phillip Stewart, both of WSP Environmental, showed
the evolution of sustainability from an international policy
Issue to a business performance issue. Attendees learned that
sustainablity doesn’t have to come at the expense of
the company’s bottom line, and further, in case after
case, implementing Sustainability Management Systems (SMS)
or Environmental Management Systems (EMS) in an organization
actually improves the bottom line. These systems provide a
means for orgnizations to continuously reduce environmental
risks over time to the vanishing point.
Petaluma
Mayor Clark Thompson enjoyed the workshop so much that he
commissioned Mr. Quevedo a Rear Admiral in the Petaluma Navy.
“I’ve
always thought of Petaluma as a united community,” said
Thompson, “now I see it as being united in sustainability.”
he said, handing Quevedo the duly enscribed certificate.
Luckily
for Mayor Thompson, business isn’t the only sector that
can apply an SMS or an EMS. Cities can streamline their processes
through these systems too. Quevedo gave an example of a German
town that decided to stop its physical growth and instead
grow the quality of their town. They developed rigorous community
standards for any large business that wanted to set up shop,
insisting that, to be welcome, it must add to the overall
quality of the town, meaning more than just sales tax dollars.
“A
key step” Quevedo said, “is defining sustainability
for your organization.” According to Quevedo, the organization
can use this definition to help make business decisions, like
who to hire, who to partner with, who to use as a supplier,
etc.. He stressed that for each sector, implementing sustainability
management systems will be different, but will share common
elements,
“There
are no cookie cutter solutions,” he added.
Some of these common elements are: measuring performance;
developing indicators; and setting goals, not policies. He
illustrated this with a story about his kids,
“I
don’t say ‘brush twice a day’ because they
can get around that if they want by brushing at 2 and 4pm.
What I say is ‘no cavities’ and it is up to them
to do whatever it takes to make sure there aren’t any
cavities.” (When questioned, it was discovered that Quevedo’s
kids are cavity-free.)
Similarly,
organizations can state their goals. For example, waste reduction
by 50% in the next 3 years. Then they can be creative about
how it happens. Of course, a company needs to know how much
waste it generates before it can reduce it by 50%. Knowing
how much waste they generate leads to “what kind of waste?”
and “where is it coming from?”. Additionally, working
with goals instead of policies gives organizations the ability
to place the creativity needed for change into the hands of
those who know best about their department, the people who
work in it. It gives employees the freedom and flexibility
to adjust their workflow in the best possible way to meet
the goals.
Quevedo,
as Director of Environmental Management and Sustainability
Programs for WSP Environmental North America, works with international
companies like BMW and Genencor International to implement
SMS strategies which emulate natural systems and are designed
to move the organizations toward sustainable development goals.
Locally he has worked with Cal EPA in the Pilot Program on
Environmental Management Systems which included Sonoma County
wineries Benziger and Davis Bynum.
At
BMW Designworks, Quevedo teaches the design teams to look
at the lifecycle of the product they are designing. Using
“biomimicry”— the emulation of nature’s
processes—a company can design products so clean that
they don’t even need to worry about environmental regulationor
disposal of toxic substances.
Quevedo
emphasized that business leaders initially need to educate
themselves; that it’s important to know where you are
going. He recommended the book outlining Agenda 21, the sustainability
guidelines drafted at the Global Summit in Rio in 1992. “This
is the recipe book,” he said, holding up his much used
copy.
“It’s
keen fun,” said Quevedo of the process of becoming sustainable,
“Start where you are, use what you have and do what you
can.”
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