A, B, C, ---, G for Green-Business

“The Earth is what we all have in common.” — Wendell Berry

As it is well said, time spent among trees is never time wasted, all we need is a better and natural perspective in every aspect towards our life. Why not include business in it as well?

Green business, also known as the sustainable business, is all about conducting any business with an eco-friendly attitude. It not only embraces sustainable operating procedures, but also leave its footprint in product and material sourcing, shipping methods and labor practices. The main objective of green business is to wipe away any negative impact on the environment, both locally or globally. The concerns of any green company approaches to minimize the waste, to reduce its carbon emission, and to avoid any harmful practices. The few organizations, practice and put their efforts in these, understand that each decision, they are making, is potentially either helping or hurting the environment at last. 

Components of a Green Business:

While green business seems to be very expensive, in real picture, it is quite easy to conduct a green business. Nature has already provided us with every component. There is an endless supply of alternative energy in the form of solar, wind, hydro etc. So, energy management, a vital ingredient of a green business, is not of any concern. Besides, alternative energies are environment-friendly, as well as economical. As an example, while switching to green power, by installing a solar panel, not only a considerable reduction in carbon emission will happen, but also the electricity bill will be reduced drastically. Thus the easiest step towards going green is the reduction in carbon footprint of any organization, which can be reduced by taking some simple steps like:

• Developing low carbon energy sources
• Implementing cost-effective and energy efficient technologies
• Focusing on direct as well as indirect emissions

Also, including the need of assessing, controlling and saving energy is always a better choice. In other words, energy management reduces wastes and promotes recycling way more. Because, alternative energy components need low maintenance and produce almost no waste products, along with it's sustainable feature.

SWOT Analysis of Green business:

• Strengths

1. Environment friendly
2. Better brand Image
3. Increasing awareness among consumers
4. Producer (mainly farmers) are benefited

• Weaknesses

1. Lack of awareness
2. Middle men intervention (sometimes)
3. Small players cannot promote their product
4. Lack of regulations and guidance

• Opportunities

1. Reduce Reuse Recycle – reduces cost
2. Effective value chain integration
3. Companies can adopt as a marketing tool
4. Reduce Risks

• Threats

1. Influence of external forces involved cannot be controlled
2. Government influence

Strategies to incorporate 'Green' into the business:

• Waste Management: While cost saving can be the main factor in green business; companies can easily implement RRR (Reduce, Reuse & Recycle) in terms of waste management. The companies will be able to minimize the material usage, they can reuse certain waste components and then recycle the products. ITC has already set an example - WoW 'Wealth out of Waste'. They collect wastes from households and redistribute to respective units for recycling purpose. They make classmate notebooks of elemental chlorine free; which can be recycled up to 7 times.
• CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR activities are done by the organizations to build a positive brand image. They can easily implement green strategies in their CSR activities to promote the green business idea more.
• Value Chain Integration: Value chain process in supply chain activities involve in forward or backward integration process to reduce the risk from regular supply of raw materials, as well as the middle men intervention. It can directly put a negative impact on the environment in so many ways. Introducing proper greenly idea to this step particularly can help nature earth including the organization.
• Spend on R&D to innovate green products: Companies spend a huge amount in R&D to produce green products and to . Spending in R&D for the success of green business can be costly. But, making the world greener by the innovative technologies are far more important. Government can also help achieving these kind of targets by encouraging the businesses to come up with new greener solutions time to time.