The term ‘greening your business’ is one which is being bandied around a lot at present. All of a sudden companies appear to be taking their corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda a lot more seriously as they realise that being perceived as being ‘green’, or not, could really impact their business.
However, while planting a few trees here and there and screwing in a couple of energy efficient light bulbs is all well and good, companies need to offer more than marketing puff if the business community is going to make a substantive impact.
The real change isn’t going to come about just through a few banks and a handful of insurance companies offsetting their C02. It’s the collective might of the start-ups and small businesses that counts as well as the multi-national conglomerates paying lip service to a far from ambitious CSR policy.
It’s somewhat worrying then, that a recent poll by entrepreneur think-tank the Tenon Forum found that over a quarter of small businesses think the cost of adopting green measures are greater than the benefit they’d bring to their business.
This opinion may also be somewhat misguided – research has shown that making small changes can produce an energy saving, therefore saving money and carbon emissions too.
However, small business owners are apparently a cynical lot – 60% of them think the government’s efforts to encourage green business behaviour is completely motivated by a desire to win votes.
True or not, it’s a real shame. There’s a lot of scope for fantastic innovation in the arena of green business. And with only a handful of governments across the world taking the green issue seriously, perhaps it is down to the entrepreneurs to make a difference.
