Beyond the Bubble
Green-ify Your: Business
Contributed by Elizabeth Nicholas, Harvard Eco-REP
Summer 2009
Although for some Harvard students, entrepreneurship may just be one word in a course title, for other Harvard students entrepreneurship is a crucial lynchpin in their extracurricular and professional lives. While many Harvard students follow their time in Cambridge with stints in graduate schools or at entry-level positions in established companies, a brave few undergraduate souls are forgoing the traditional path and forging ahead with companies of their own.
In today's volatile economic climate, Harvard entrepreneurs are looking to get the best bang for their buck. And luckily for them and for the environment, fiscal responsibility and eco-responsibility go hand in hand. So budding businessmen and women, take note as you plan your new venture this summer: working sustainability into your company can benefit both your bottom line and your public image.
The cost-saving measures of environmentalism are tremendous. Any office that chooses to start out with Compact Florescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) will save not only on light energy, but also on air conditioning, since CFLs emit less heat than traditional light bulbs. Entrepreneurs looking to create an eco-friendly and budget conscious work atmosphere can make the one-time investment of buying each employee a mug to keep at the office instead of constantly having to replenish paper cup supplies. Discouraging employees from printing esoteric emails saves on paper and ink cartridge costs, and also does a tremendous amount to cut down on waste in both of these areas. Companies that mandate their employees power down their computers and turn off lights when they are not in use invariably save money as well as energy, as does turning down air conditioning in the summer. (No more summer office cardigans!)
As for invitations to launch parties and other events that warrant more than a cursory email or Evite, a new genre of elegant online invitations is emerging. Combining entrepreneurship, environmentalism and taste, senior James Hirschfeld's Paperless Post is one example of an online invitation service that will ultimately save as much money as it will rainforest.
Another plus to environmental entrepreneurship is the public relations benefits that will invariably come along with a commitment to sustainability in the current media climate. The current luxury market especially looks extremely favorably upon environmentalism. PPR, one of the world's two chief luxury brand management conglomerates, is the chief example of this sort of responsible business and brand stewardship. The group manages some of the world's most elite brands (YSL, Sergio Rossi, Bottega, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga) and portrays anything that is not sustainable as inherently tacky, with true luxury encompassing eco-responsibility.
Influential publications have moved in tandem with brand managers; InStyle has had a Green section for the past four years, every issue of Vogue profiles some sort of organic company (March was an organic seersucker suit company based in upstate New York.) This movement in brand management and publications towards the creation of the eco-chic ethos that rules in elite fashion enclaves is all part and parcel of the now booming Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement. CSR has spawned new concepts, such as the Triple Bottom Line—a new rubric a company uses to calculate its total worth and benefit to society as a whole, instead of purely to shareholders.
For Harvard entrepreneurs, one of the best moves to make before stepping entirely out into the big, bad world of business is to look at examples of companies in their field who have made a point to incorporate sustainability into their business plans and have reaped rewards for doing so. Stella McCartney is a prime example for anyone interested in fashion or beauty, and Whole Foods a sound case study for those hoping to launch lifestyle or goods and services company.
But perhaps the best thing budding entrepreneurs at Harvard can do is talk to one another. The Entrepreneurship Club could go a long way in promoting both the fiscal health of their members future companies and the stewardship they provide for the earth by creating a green initiative to explore all the ways that they can help each other boost their Triple Bottom Line. Bonds formed now in such an endeavor would allow members to continue to keep each other abreast of important developments in green companies as technology and ideas progress.
