Becoming Sustainable: The Process

Building or maintaining a sustainable business means understanding how that business impacts the environment.  The methods and solutions that a power plant uses to become sustainable are not particularly useful to a car dealership or a bakery. 

We begin by determining where you are, where you want to get to, and what you need to get there. 

We start with an assessment of your business to determine:

 The aspects and impacts of your business.  What are the critical processes in your operation?  What are the inputs, activities, and outputs of those processes?  What aspects and impacts are associated with these activities?

 The relevant measures.  What are the metrics that are relevant to sustainability in your business?  What metrics will give us an objective measurement of sustainability?  How will we know where we are now and when we meet our goals?

 Your goals and constraints.  What are your sustainability goals and in what timeframe?  What resources do you have to achieve these goals?  What outside influences will enhance or inhibit your ability to meet these goals?

Next, we prioritize:

• Which aspects and impacts are significant in your business?
• Which ones do we have control over to change?
• What will the scope of our effort be?

Then, taking into consideration significant aspects and impacts, your goals and your constraints, we develop:

• A plan of activities to meet the goals in the desired time
• A resources allocation budget to implement the plan
• A communication plan
• Methods of evaluation to know if we’re making progress and when we’ve reached our goals.
  

Once your goals have been met, we implement a control system:

• Document what we did and why
• Document the measures that should be monitored for maintenance of your goals and future improvements
• Train employees in how to use this control system to maintain our sustainability.