Why I like to keep things LEAN!

For much of my career, I've been working with clients to help them drive better efficiency within their business. Most recently this has been in the form of collaborating with some of our closest and most well-known employer partners at Geon to design-out waste using Lean Six Sigma principles and techniques. Why? … I suggest you keep reading to find out.

Sustainability is no longer a buzzword. Nor is green simply part of a colour palette. If life has taught us anything in recent weeks, with our captivation of the news, it’s that actions can have severe and irreversible consequences, so the need to protect and defend our world from the dangers that lurk has never been more imperative.

Over recent years, my team and I have been on a major sustainability drive. We discovered early on into Geon’s inception that many of the businesses we engaged with were taking a back seat when it came to efficiency. And I, for one, really wanted to understand why. It didn’t take me long, through a handful of engagement sessions, to uncover that the main reasons for this was a lack of education of what green principles truly are, thanks to a plethora of poorly designed and over-produced products and documents being shoved down business’ throats, AND a significant lack of high-quality resources and tools to call upon. The irony was (and still is) that this lack of support for businesses breeds inefficient processes, which in turn generates waste!!! And I’m not just talking plastic. Wasted time and opportunities too!

Now is the time for everybody to be thinking GREEN!

As a business owner, taking responsibility to embody sustainable practices, eliminate waste and reduce your carbon footprint is good for 3 things: your People, your Planet and your Profits.

It’s one of the best things you can get behind in the corporate space yet there is still such a lag when it comes to business engagement. So, I had to do something about it.

As a champion of green growth, I knew back in 2018 that my role was going to be far more than just founder and MD of Geon - my role within my business, our industry, and beyond, was going to require me to up my driving skills, get behind the green wheel and start revving some real change in our perceptions as well as our behaviours!

In the last year, I have enabled my business to focus heavily on our own green principles, because I’m a firm believer that everything must start from within. We’ve identified and assessed the big, as well as the small, changes that we can make internally to reduce our impact on the environment. This empowers and positions us to better support our clients by using our lean, and change management methods to implement new practices, develop new skill sets and cultivate fresh mindsets to shape the future of ‘how we do things’.

It’s been within this vision, and during some quite poignant moments of contemplation during lockdown that the launch of my new programme, Going Green with Lean, truly came alive. With the right education and the right tools now in place, I’m on a mission like never before!

So how does this link to YOUR business, I hear you ask?

My team and I have developed a new programme that takes the challenges of climate change and environmental waste, and?wrapped it?around lean principles to create a toolkit which is truly unique and 100% effective in support businesses in their transition journey to Net Zero.

Waste is no accident. It’s the by-product of poor design. The aim of being Lean as a business is to review your design capability, and as a collective, work with us to deliberately design-OUT waste by becoming smarter and more resourceful about what we can reduce, reuse and recycle in our day-to-day operations.

We must review the end-to-end value stream to identify, remove and prevent waste. By changing our mindset to view waste as a design flaw and by being open to changing our behaviours and processes, we can avoid waste in the first place.

The Lean Green approach can not only save your business money, it can promote a Circular Economy for any business who embodies it. It's THE new way of “doing things” that turns waste into wealth and protects the environment that does so much to protect us. For your business, being green and being lean is the ultimate WIN-WIN.

I’ve worked hard to ensure that Going Green with Lean can be offered as a fully funded programme for businesses of all shapes, sizes and sectors, to extend its reach, influence and impact to as many businesses in the North East as possible. So, it is here in this week’s article that I take the opportunity to spread the word!?

So, what happens next?

I’m on the lookout for as many businesses as possible within my Linkedin Network to embark on a leaner lifestyle with me. Because to move mountains, I need an army!

If you're interested then a good place to start is to find out how green your business currently is. You can do that by taking my short quiz HERE and you can submit your results to me simply via DM or on email at [email protected]

I look forward to hearing from you, and hopefully working with you soon!