To achieve a high level of sustainability, financial services companies need to focus on two areas: operations and portfolios. Focusing operations can offer quick returns, while paying closer attention to portfolios addresses a broader set of sustainability concerns.

Our webinar this Friday (2/3) covers our full approach to green banking, and in this short blog, we focus on operations, since doing business while being cost-effective is fundamental to any business successful. Even simple operational changes can help banks and credit unions do just that, and companies save on operational costs and reduce environmental impacts by using energy, water, paper and other services or materials more efficiently.

Performance metrics are the underlying fabric of any effective sustainability program. That’s why efforts to achieve operational efficiency should be built from the group up. Focusing on comprehensive building energy efficiency is the most obvious first step, but quick wins can also be found in other areas of sustainability. Having a clear roadmap to guide the strategy is essential to maximize return on investment and direct future goals for the company, and metrics are the anchor of this approach.

Operational efficiency works best when it becomes integrated into regular business practice, and is made easier through strategic communication of goals and efforts to employees and customers. This is because so many decisions about resource use lie in the hand of your employees. Efforts that focus on technical solutions alone will often find that the full benefits efficiency upgrades are not realized.

To get started making these changes at your company:

• Download our case studies
• Register for our webinar
• Contact EcoShift for a consultation

Today we turn the spotlight to EcoShift’s own Dr. Dustin Mulvaney. Dustin is one of the principals and co-founders of EcoShift, and he recently co-authored a research paper for the United Nations Development Programme.

For Dustin, a surface level understanding is never enough – he looks at the breadth and depth of every problem, and is motivated to find solutions with the greatest positive and least negative impacts. This is why he took a look at the impacts of energy generation and use from an environmental justice standpoint. He, along with Dr. Peter Newell and Jon Phillips, authored a research paper for the UN’s Human Development Report titled, “Pursuing Clean Energy Equitably.” His goal with this paper was to draw the attention of the UN, policy makers, and academics to the notion that even clean energy programs could contribute to inequality.

The concept of energy justice is the theme of the paper. There are three aspects of energy justice addressed: (1) energy poverty, and the 1.4 billion people without regular access to electricity; (2) the impacts of fossil fuel extraction and fossil fuel based power generation; and (3) the potential for new issues arising out of the wave of clean technologies and climate change adaptation strategies.

The UN research paper is an expansion of another paper that Dustin and Peter Newell worked on that will appear in the Journal Development in Change in 2012. Dustin and Peter first got the idea for the paper after meeting at an Environmental Justice conference at East Anglia University in the UK. Dustin had presented on work addressing the environmental and health impacts of photovoltaic manufacturing and deployment. Peter saw an opportunity to expand Dustin’s thought process and write a report for the UN’s Development Programme.

Dustin describes his work on this UN paper as an extension of what motivated his work with EcoShift: “We’re not just out there to sell things – we have a broader engagement on the impacts in areas where we are making change.” Dustin’s primary goal in environmental consulting is to identify and strive for just and sustainable solutions.

Dustin Mulvaney is a co-founder of and principal consultant for EcoShift. He hails from New Jersey, where he completed his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and M.A. in Environmental Policy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His interest in sustainable agriculture brought him to Santa Cruz, CA where he obtained a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz. He then went on to form EcoShift with Dr. Alex Gernshenson and Dr. James Barsimantov, peers from UCSC. Dustin holds and an assistant professor position in the Environmental Studies Department at San Jose State University while continuing his work with EcoShift.

It seems like every product and service imaginable has an eco-friendly option available, and the market for these types of products is rapidly growing. But would all of these products really match our sustainability goals? Unfortunately, most eco-labeling doesn’t explicitly tell the consumer how much greener a product is than a conventional alternative, or how far it is from a truly sustainable version. As such, whether intentional are not, most eco-lableing includes at least some degree of greenwashing, which is the practice of over marketing a supposedly ‘green’ element of a product or service.

It is easy to take one-off actions, like reducing the amount of packaging around a product, including plant-based ingredients, or installing a rooftop solar PV system. But none of those actions on its own makes a product sustainable. And while easily marketed, the impact of those actions on the environment (and on the firm’s bottom line) typically go unreported. This can be detrimental as consumers become more and more sustainability savvy.

EcoShift’s own Dr. James Barsimantov addresses the importance of product labeling at Sustainable Life Media:

Focusing on transparent, operational metrics can address these problems . A metrics approach allows a company to be transparent. Performance metrics can be readily communicated to the public, like an eco-label, and they also carry real information to the customer. Sustainability metrics also work as reliable benchmarks from which all potential actions can be compared, strategy can be assessed, and a course can be set – both environmentally and financially. With a clear vision, strategy, and concise metrics, decision makers can easily identify the right actions to pursue.

Labeling based on industry-specific metrics would give consumers comparison points for making informed decisions. In many cases where a sustainable product has an increased consumer cost, proper labeling would provide a more appreciable value to the consumer. James points out that industry specific tools “once perfected, can help serve as a roadmap towards sustainability”, as companies within each industry will have peer-to-peer comparisons of environmental and social impact.

There are already several rating systems that have been, or are being, developed to guide various industries toward sustainable goals. Some are based on metrics (or real impacts), while others are based on checklists (or completed actions). The US Green Building Council’s LEED program is one of the more well known tools. See our upcoming posts for a synopsis of various industry-specific sustainability tools and programs.

What is a sustainable product? What is a sustainable business? The answer depends on how sustainability is defined for any given industry or product type. What makes a tomato sustainable is inherently different from what makes a smart phone sustainable because the originate from very different materials in very different environments. These definitions, often used to create certifications, rating systems, or benchmarks, are quickly evolving as society grapples with evolving economic and resource constraints.

EcoShift specializes in industry-specific sustainability, combining the best of metrics consulting, strategy insight, and change management to move businesses toward their goals. Rather than taking a one-size fits all approach, EcoShift considers the unique goals of each industry and the specific challenges each clients faces in realizing sustainability goals. EcoShift understands that while the underlying meaning of sustainability will never change, the approach to realizing it needs to be tailored.

In this blog we will look at some of parameters that make industries unique, including existing metrics tools guiding industry change. The blog will also focus on what makes the EcoShift team unique, such as Dustin Mulvaney’s recent research paper for the UN Human Development Report.