Resist the temptation of green washing: 7 P’s of Green washing.
Dr.Prakash W
PhD (Digital transformation & Customer experience Director SAP Practice at Eviden
SAP SAP Labs India Anita V. #sustainability #greenwashing #emissions# carbon emissions #ehs #business #transformation # sustainability executives# SAP
Resist the temptation of green washing: 7 P’s of Green washing.
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Author: Prakash Wagh
P1 :Donot hide or “Go for Green washing”
?Some of the organizations (Caveat), indulge in practice of either overreporting or under reporting, including manipulated figures about the environment or sustainability impact of their business or operations. This is a criminal breach of public and private stakeholders. Please note, it is right to publish the actual status backed by your plans to reduce the sustainability/Carbon footprint impact or environments aspects of damage.
There is nothing wrong in publishing the actual status. The true representation of business or company sustainability or carbon status is of paramount importance. Please note hiding the information is not good and it is always a best practice to declare the actual status. Two wrongs cannot make a right one. We as a global world is undergoing a transformation towards achieving a goal of reducing the global warning by 1.5 degree Celsius in coming 7 years. As a business, we must align and join and execute the journey. The first Principle is: Do not hide or indulge in green washing.
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P2: Avoid Greenwashing: Sustainability adoption is easier than green washing though not a Magic wand
Adopting sustainability is not a “Magic broom” like in Harry potter’s series, but it is much easier to adopt sustainability rather in indulging in “Green washing” It can be done at your pace, budget and convince? Then why go for “Green washing?” The sustainability or decarbonization is a journey and goes through five main stages.
·??????Awakening: Awareness about Sustainability/Importance/standards
·??????Knowledge: Advisor or In-house expert enriching with 5 W (What, When Where and Why and 1 H (How) of sustainability
·??????Status: Internal and external advisors assess where the business/company stands with respect to sustainability.
·??????Targeted status: Stakeholders decide the path forward in near, mid and long terms for sustainability goals and objectives,
·??????Initiatives required: Stakeholder draw a sortied and log term path for implementation in various areas of business processes to achieve the sustainability goals and objectives. (Emissions, Carbon footprint, Automation and so on)
?Fig 1: Five main stages towards green /sustainability in business
P3: No to manual manipulation or green wash: It is a science but not the Rocket science.
Sustainability is a science. But it is not a rocket science. This simply means that you do not require expert environment or sustainability scientists full time on your role. You can take services of sustainability experts as and when required as in the case of:
These are few of the main and prime examples, where company or business needs to have external advise for benchmarking the current sustainability and carbon footprint.
There are companies like “Eco-ACT” which can give you single shop insights into not only these aspects but other small business /company activities which can give “ Current benchmarking “ of sustainability or “Carbon status” of the company.
In this phase, company or business tries to establish “Current?sustainability/ carbon footprint” status of the company.
The message is that with external stakeholder and internal stakeholders, we can easily determine the current sustainability/ carbon footprint of the company. This is an initial step to further build up the sustainability roadmap and initiative.
This is not a rocket science. Internal business team and external sustainability consultants can help to put in the “Initial status” without much issue. The main requirement is that the internal stakeholders of business knows the business processes to the granularity and must be able to explain it and agree with the external advisors.
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P4 : If I donot greenwhash…what I will get in return?
CFO always ask pointed question- what is the rate of return on investment? Question is right and CFO is also right. However certain issues in business needs to be seen from a broader and longer horizon perspective. If someone asks me what is the return of investment when I am raising my children to become educated and cultured citizen? I may fumble but the fact is that a new generation with new skills which can be of help in contribution can be my answer. No CFO will buy my argument. He will come with a next question? what is the guarantee that your children will be able to contribute, how much and for how many years? What if your children become a burden to nation? CFO is right.
The sustainability or carbon neutral is similar to above question. To cut a long story short…
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Well. even this will not satisfy the CFO. He wants a business case which will show him investments and returns on sustainability over a period. convince him. A business case is a powerful tool to
Let us take an amazingly simple example in business. Suppose I am into CPG industry. I can prove to him that a sustainable packaging instead of the current packaging (which is plastic of paper) can be replaced with a bamboo pulp based packaging , which is uniquely different , gives me a chance to label with a green dot and packaging dissolves after use in few months without any significant increase in packaging cost but sure enough to switch over other buyers and brings in some more mullahs. I do not see CFO refusing such a rational proposal.
With Sustainabilty initiaves if I increase complaince and avoid penalities and fines? What if I reduce carbon offsetting costs. There are numerous exmaples. Building a sustainability case is much easy than other cpaital investment cases.
Another misconception is that sustainable practices are more costly. No argument on this. Sustainability across the organization does involve some investment but doesn’t mean it is costly. Its systems which support businesses to run smoothly require millions of dollars annually? Does that make IT costs as prohibitive? Without IT, you may not survive in the marketplace.
Sustainability initial costs are lifetime investment which give you return in various forms such as sustainable design and packaging, more automation and less manual input, less rework, and less wastages. Less accidents and compensation. less penalties and fines and list go on.
Misconception that sustainability is costly is wrong.
P5 : Sustaniable products are not competitaive on price : It is better to go for Green washing to retain advantage in the market.
Another misconcption. With sustianble enterprise, it is possible to design and manufacture the product with same price as those who donot follow sustianbility. The lead time, waste, rework, accidents, fines and penalty?reduction , increase of recycling of resources , higher equipment uptime and reduction in manufacturing time , helps companies to be competitative even if they adopt sustainable practices in thir business.
In certain cases like sustianble agriculture or organic farming , yes there is less yeild and prices of organic food may be higher, but there is customer segment who is ready to pay a premium for this.
However in business scenario of mass production, the efficiencies and effectiveness gained through sustainable practices ,recycling ,waste and rework reduction help businesses/companies not only to fight on price but also bring in brand loyalty and customer satisfaction by marketing their sustainability and green initiatives,
P6 : It requires state of art technolgy so why invest ? ,rather adopt “Green wash”
No. No in the sense that 60-70% of the sustainable practices in businesses requires Basic technology if you are not still using 1960-1970 tehcnology in your business. Even with 1980 tehnology you can adopt, many of the sustainability practices. However, “Green washing” is not an excuse for the technology update as well as keeping in tune with competitors,
However the efficiency and effetiveness part does require invesstment into new technologies like smart factory, automated maintenance, Industry 4.0.Howver irrespective of sustianbility, these are required investments , to be active in market place.
To be competitive ,companies need to adopt new manufacturing and controlling technologies and as such this is a “Must” investment. Sustainability practices along with new technologies makes the companies to be a force to be reckon with in the marketplace.
New age technologies, act as enablers to sustainability practices deployment and enhancements.
Let me elaborate this point. Let us go back to 1900 century. Farmers then used to till the land with bullocks/ horses and so on. ( No tractor, No diesel or gasoline). The seeds were used from last harvest (No hybrid seeds). The fertilizer used was cow dung and other natural material ( No Urea or other fertilizers). The watering was through manual methods ( No diesel or electric engines), there was absolutely no use of pesticides or herbicides (No chemicals). Harvesting was manual. 75% of produce was sold in agricultural markets and 25% was kept for home consumption and next year seeds. The yield per hector was average. This is a complete end to end cycle of sustainable farming, however, to stay connected with increasing the production, every country has gone for new techniques in agriculture. Some of these initiatives increase the agricultural productivity but at the same time resulted to degradation of soil, heavy chemical trace in agricultural products . A balanced view is necessary in sustainability journey based on above example.
New technology in the form of electrical energy, diesel pump ,tractors , planters ,harvesters ,hybrid seeds ,genetically modified seed , insecticides ,herbicides and other chemicals, plane spraying ,drip and other irrigation methods helped farmers to increase the yield manyfold. However it resulted in many issues such as salinization of soil, soil erosion, soil degradation, mutation in insects. Bacteria and viruses on plant. Modern technology could result in higher yields but definitely lacked the quality and side effects of excessive use of chemicals and fertilizers, indirectly on human health and nutrition.
Sustainability requires a balance between productivity and quality as well as sustainable developments and conservation.
P7 : “ A Stich in time saves nine”.It is prudent to adopt sustianbility in letter and spirit.
Misinformation and fudging of sustainability or carbon emission can help for some period. However with so many regulatory frameworks, audits and public scrutiny , one or the other day ,truth will prevail.
Please note ,this topic involves multiple angles such as transparency and visibility ,trust of the stakeholders ,compliance to regulatory requirements ,ethics and morality when someone try to do the “Green washing”
Sustainability initiatives needs to be a corporate mandate which will percolate to the lowest level of the organization. As mentioned it starts with Business vision and objective, Business strategy supported by various business processes. It also includes sustainability or “Net Zero strategy”.
The starting points for various will differ depending on the “Current status” of the sustainability within the organization. Whatever may be the starting point, organizations needs to come out with sustainability strategy ,short ,mid and long terms goals. It must put in place an implementation and reporting framework in place.
Sustainability if addressed correctly, will start to give tangible and intangible results within first 18 months from inception. This is a continuous journey, and it must be managed in structured way.
The author emphasizes that “Greenwashing “should not be an option at all. Start with sustainability journey in letter and spirit and results will be in place as organizations follow the structured way to adopt and embed sustainability.
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P.S. Views expressed in this articles is of the author and does not?necessarily express the view of the organization, currently he is working with.
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Prakash wagh
SAP S/4 and Sustainability expert