Green Consulting Green Consulting Background: More than couple of years back, a study by the former chief economist

of the World Bank,

Sir Nicholas Stern of the UK, called climate change the greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen with the potential to shrink the global economy by 20 percent and to cause economic and social disruption on par with the two world wars and the great depression. Many scientists have been saying that warming has reached dire levels, generating reinforcing feedback loops that will take us hazardously close to the point of no return. Economists are saying that it will cost far less to cut Green House Gas (GHG) emissions than to adapt to the consequences later. The global economy shrunk to a different level now though for different reasons, namely financial over engineering and its consequences. The prediction of slowdown of economic situation due to global warming and the current economic reality have the same factor driving, namely excessive greed than felt need. If we so desire, a preparation for recovering from the current crisis might as well set our path of recovery from the catastrophe that may befall to us due to global warming. We might as well totally avert the crisis by our willful concerted action. Problem/Issue: When one understands things holistically, the future of humanity depends on the sustainability of a complex system involving three interdependent, highly fragile sub-systems: the natural environment, the social/political system and the global economy. Due to their interdependence, the collapse of any one of these would result in the collapse of others. The book by Peter Senge & Others, The Necessary Revolution How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world, very aptly summarized the present problem by presenting the following facts: 1 2 3 4 Industrial Waste (USA wastes 100 billion tons a year, 90% of inputs) Consumer/Commercial Waste & Toxicity (of 8B/year, 5B not absorbable) Non-Renewable Resources in Sharp Decline Renewable Resources down 30-70% and in some cases close to extinction tipping point (fresh water, topsoil, fisheries, and forests)

. Though the facts given above are from the environmental stand point, they have ramifications on society and global economy as one can analyse these. The Suggested Approach: What gets measured gets done. Two important methodologies have been advocated to address the measuring and management of sustainability issues. They are: Life Cycle Assessment & Management (LCAM) Triple Bottom Line

A framework, LESS (Living Energy Smart Standard) developed by BS&CC helps one to take the cognizant from different points of view guiding organizations from reduction in energy consumption through energy recovery, i.e. being less bad through being more good, adhering to the principles of minimization and optimization. To some extent, the framework integrates the methodologies that were mentioned, earlier Sustainability is everyones business. A sustainable business ought to be able to measure, document, and report a positive ROI on all three bottom lines-economic, environmental, and social- as well as other benefits that stakeholders receive along the same three dimensions. The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) captures the essence of sustainability by measuring the impact of an organizations activities on the world. Overall Result: Sustainability has developed as a unified way of addressing a wide array of business concerns about natural environment, workers rights, consumer protection, and corporate governance, as well as the impact of business behavior on broader social issues, such as hunger, poverty, education, health care, and human rights- and the relationship of all these to profit. For the success of businesses, the sustainability focus should be to guide how the companies become more profitable by doing the responsible things in the environment and the society in which they operate. Values matter more for the organization to provide value to all.

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