The cost of Environmental Sustainability for SMEs

Small to Medium Enterprises (SME) face many challenges: gaining that extra market share, increasing their exposure whilst running on a tight marketing budget, running day to day operations whilst managing the growth of the business, etc.

And now, there comes an additional challenge: the issue of being “green”. With the CTS (Carbon Trading Scheme) coming into play, momentum is gathering from large MNC’s and big players in the industry to conform to the scheme, as dictated by the Government. Although costly, there’s a lot of benefit with this movement, namely of course, helping the environment.

However, the cost implications for any implementation of “Green” systems in an organisation / business demands a considerable amount of effort and capital. Not only that, the drive and motivator to become Green is slowly slipping away from the SME’s purely on the basis of those two major points: effort and capital.

The impact? Well, lets look at the numbers: According to the ABS (Cat. 8165,  June 2003 to 2006), small businesses (categorised as having less than 20 employees – as defined by ABS) accounts for 89.3% of businesses with employees. That amounts to 721,569 people employed by small businesses – that is a lot of people! By sheer volume alone, SME’s have a major impact in our community and society in general – and we generally interface with more SME’s than large MNC’s.

The Government is well aware on the contributions SME’s have to the society – especially in employment rates and impact to local economies – but what about their impact towards the environment? There are many SME’s out that who are willing to get on board with the Green movement, but can’t get the necessary capital and momentum to follow the big guns.

For all SME’s out there (business owners, operators, administrators, workers and customers), think about it: With the sheer volume and impact SME’s have to the economy, maybe its time for us to unite and remind the Government that being Green shouldn’t just be restricted to the MNC’s and Large Organisations – we want to do our bit too. But its just too expensive!

So, for the interim, there are a few things we could do as owners / operators of SME’s:

1. Recycle: A simple initiative, and doesn’t cost you a thing – there are companies that are willing to collect the recycled goods on your behalf – its a great start to your way to implement your very own ecofriendly process.
2. Switch to Recyclable Paper: Believe it or not – technology has caught up with the humble paper! They’re much whiter, does not affect any photocopy / scanning / fax devices, and the quality is on par with normal white paper.
3. Green Time: Get your employees involved – one way to do so is get your employees to contribute half an hour a day to their Green Time. An allocated time for them to participate in activities that would aid in helping the environment. Initiatives like these have many benefits: You could get all your employees together to participate in a volunteer day to plant trees in a local school (this would then increase your profile in the community, brings in a sense of team spirit in your workplace, and gets you and your employees out and about!)
4. Align the Green Time to their scorecards: What better way to reward your workers by aligning them towards the green movement! Does it cost you much? Yes, there is a cost implication, but think about it this way: by your employees working towards being environmentally conscious, you can promote the initiative to all your stakeholders, customers, and your target market, and increasing your profile in the industry.
5. Join in the Green Community: There are many groups out there really interested in helping out the environment – join these groups! As an owner of an SME, your involvement would not only increase your profile in your community, but also provide you with different perspectives towards increasing your Green Profile and also help out with your business transformation.

Easy steps – for now. There are other ways to help out the environment with low cost initiatives. And who says you can’t market these ideas? Use the initiatives to promote your business!

As the number of SME’s increase, it is up to SME owners / operators to start thinking strategically and accomplish their goals whilst helping the environment.

So, go out there and start thinking of ways to change the world!