A Green Legacy?

by Marguerite Granat on October 21, 2009

“Our customers have helped save 80,000 trees” blinked in front of me on the Wells Fargo ATM screen while getting cash at the closest gas station. It truly caught my attention. I later found out that Wells Fargo had ranked number 13 on Newsweek 2009 Green Rankings. It does not take much to be green when you are in the banking industry but the reason they got ranked high was because they have provided over $5 billion in financing for green businesses. It appears to me that they have done a great job at communicating their greenness to everyone that comes in contact with them. Some organizations may be green and do everything right but are not effective at communicating their practices either internally with the employees, potential employees, customers or investors.

King Henry VIII is one of those who did something right for the green cause but who is more well known for killing two wives, marrying six and having an insane obsession around leaving a male heir. I would argue that part of his obsession was well deserved because England had recently suffered from a number of civil wars which were caused by the lack of male heir. Most of the history around this drama has clouded the fact that Henry passed the first legislation in England to protect the trees. During his reign, he started building a navy and wood was needed to build the ships. He quickly realized that if all the trees were cut down, there would be none for the future of the navy.

Being green was a strategic advantage for Henry VIII from a national security perspective. At that time, it may not have been a practice that helped increase goodwill with his subjects. I would have to research the values that were important to his countrymen and would love your feedback if you know the answer. Today, being green is becoming a strategic advantage. In the future, if you aren’t green, you might not even be part of the game. I’ve written an article that shares this perspective as it relates to attracting candidates for an organization.  Today’s market whether employee, customer, or shareholder is increasingly making decisions based on whether the organization has green practices.

Your Insights and Thoughts

  • Do you make decisions  based on whether a company is leaving a green legacy?
  • Do you think that being green will be an expectation or strategic advantage or just nice to have?
Photo Credits, Andrew Dunn
Please Share!

    Tagged as: Green, Leadership

    • http://twitter.com/Jensen_G Jensen

      There is a distinct difference between paperless banking “green” solutions and financing green companies, and the two should not be confused. The paperless banking is a minor (but positive) impact of an ancillary banking process. Using a bank’s power to finance green businesses is something at the core of the banking industry and is a much more significant (and laudible) step. Lumping small, less significant ancillary actions with more fundamental, core-business related actions does a disservice to those who take the larger actions.

      • Marguerite Granat

        Jensen, although I’m not sure about the exact criteria that was used to rank the companies on the 2009 Green Rankings I know that the reason they ranked high was due to the loans made to green businesses. The point I’m trying to make is that there are companies that do a great job at branding themselves green when its just green washing and some do everything right without effectively communicating these accomplishments with their stakeholders. I think that Wells Fargo has done a good job at making significant impacts through those investments as well as communicating these accomplishments to their customers. You seem to be in tune with green business. Are people making decisions about supporting an organization based on whether the company has green practices in place?

        • http://twitter.com/Jensen_G Jensen

          Like you said, in many ways it’s about PR. Companies that greenwash instead of changing core practices are rolling the dice on whether they will be found out. If the public swallows their pitch, they’ve saved money. If the public sniffs out their deceptiveness, they will lose business. An example of a company being ruined by failing to be honest with the public about their “green” practices is Sigg, the water bottle company. They advertised themselves as the epitome of green. Yet, they didn’t disclose that their bottles had traces of BPA (the precise chemical people were buying Siggs to avoid) until they were forced to. Now, their reputation has been ruined, and I would not be surprised to see them go out of business in the near future. If they had (A) been honest about the not-so-green parts of their business or (B) earnestly tried to clean up that part of their business, they would be in a much better situation now.

    Previous post:

    Next post: