The single most significant thing that any business can do
to save the planet is… Operate efficiently!
Yes, that’s it. Stop! Think about it.
How efficient is your business at what it does? Yep, I know everyone is busy doing stuff, but are they doing it efficiently? How often are things done wrong, and have to be done again? How much time do people spend waiting for something? How often do you see a team member and they don’t look busy…or maybe clearly not motivated?
One of my fun and simple metrics is how many staplers are there in the office? And if the answer is more than two, you really aren’t operating efficiently at all.
I see many companies who, at Board level, have an aspiration to become greener, more environmentally friendly etc. They try and do clever things like switching off lights, planting trees, buying electric cars etc., and don’t get me wrong, these are all great actions, but right in front of them is the inefficiency of what their business does every day…it’s like fixing the dripping tap in the bathroom whilst the tap in the kitchen sink is left running all day.
OK, so there’s a flaw in this, right? That un-tapped 20% (or more) inefficiency is impossible to address? The world isn’t perfect, and some inefficiency is inevitable, right? Well, to a degree yes, but not to that level. I have proven many times over that (real) inefficiencies of 10% or less are achievable, and if you look at the latest government data (International comparisons of UK productivity (ICP), final estimates – Office for National Statistics) it too confirms that at least 13 percentage points improvement is possible, and even then that only brings the UK up to the G7 average, not the best in the world.
When I ask clients and potential clients how efficiently they think their business is operating, I often get an answer of between 60 and 80% efficient, and that’s their self-assessment. When I review the same, my estimate is almost always at least 10% below that…sometimes 20% or more.
So how does being more efficient at what you do save the planet…well, let’s take the best case scenario, say your business was 80% efficient, then if we could tap into the other 20%, you could deliver the same output in 80% of the time – that’s 20% less journeys to work, 20% less energy consumption, 20% less material consumed etc. etc. Imagine a world where you were able to reduce the overheads of your business by 20% (or conversely, increase your output by 20% with no increase in overhead)
So why is this opportunity not being realised? Why are we letting this happen? If I knew the answer to this question, I would be a very wise man indeed. Maybe it sits in the ‘too difficult’ bucket, or business leaders don’t know where to start, or who to turn to for help? I would be interested to know what the barrier is for your business, so please feel free to comment below.
What I do know, is that it’s what I do, and have always done with all the businesses I have worked in and with. Identifying the opportunity, developing a plan, and delivering on that plan is the reason why MCDBT was formed – to help businesses release their untapped potential and become the best they possibly can be.
So, before you crack on with buying new recycling bins, or changing your office lighting to PIR control, ask yourself, is your business really operating as efficiently as it can be? Because if it’s not, attacking the real inefficiencies will give you a much bigger ‘bang for the buck’ than any other action you can take, and with the economic and employee satisfaction benefits thrown in for free, the next step of your green journey will be a cinch!
So, if every business in the UK improved productivity by at least 10%, what would that do to the UK carbon footprint, energy usage, water usage etc. etc. The thing about improving how a business operates is not a discrete activity. It’s not something you do once and walk away. If done properly, processes, systems and a way of thinking is the legacy left behind that continues to drive improvements. If every business did this magnitude of improvement, could we really stop the glaciers from melting and the oceans from rising? Well, who knows (I know that I don’t), but it will certainly go a long way to helping…