Collection Development "Green Business": The Green Capitalist

The “greening” of corporate behemoths like Wal-Mart, DuPont, and Toyota has received much media attention in recent years. But consider small businesses: according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, of the estimated 27 million firms in the United States, 99.7 percent have fewer than 500 employees, 97.5 percent have fewer than 20, and more than 70 percent are “Mom-and-Pop” home-based concerns. Small businesses employ almost exactly half the private U.S. labor force—some 57.4 million people. Individually, they may be minimal energy users and waste emitters; collectively, however, their environmental impact is potentially huge.

So how big is their footprint? No one knows for sure. Greener World Media's unflinching State of Green Business 2008 points to some key gaps in data and methodologies relating to the measure of progress of environmental practices of firms, both big and small. We have, for instance, estimates of job numbers in clean technologies, but no clear data on the number of people doing green work in unclean industries; likewise, we have no idea how many jobs are being created in green business sectors, or, indeed, how many green businesses comprise that sector. In fact, the very term “green business” eludes precise definition.

Clear away the cant—i.e., going green is a “win-win” situation; save money and the planet and feel good about doing it; etc.—and the practical difficulties business owners must overcome in greening their operations emerge. The first is attempting to change when the surrounding economic system is in full meltdown. A global recession slows everything, including green initiatives, and tight credit markets make it that much harder for firms to make needed capital investments. On the other hand, crisis may be opportunity: the improved energy and resource efficiencies fundamental to any company's sustainability plan provide demonstrated reduced operating costs, a healthier bottom line.

As the business literature repeatedly tells us, two obstacles businesses will face in attempting to green their operations are time (a shortage) and information (a lack): time, because business owners have businesses to run; information, because accessing and understanding sometimes complex documentation takes, well, time. There would appear, then, to be an opportunity here for librarians who understand better than most the intricacies of information gathering.

Reading through swaths of current titles in the green business genre, one gets a vague sense of déjà vu. Darlings of the ecobusiness movement—e.g., Patagonia, Interface Inc., General Electric—deservedly get a lot of coverage. Still, this field is relatively fresh, and there's not yet a lot of new business success stories from which to draw. This looks to be changing: TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky's upcoming Revolution in a Bottle (see below) could be an auspicious sign of things to come.

Another indication that green business is still at a nascent stage of development is the lack of comprehensive directories of green services and products. With the exception of New Society Publishers' specialized Green Building Products (2006) and disparate web sources, North America has nothing to compare with the UK's biannual Green Directory or the Asia Pacific region's annual Eco-products Directory (Asian Products Organization). Magazine coverage is also limited: Green Money Journal and Fast Company (see below) are noteworthy U.S. publications, while Canada's Green Business and Holland's Ode are fine international examples.

Despite the slim pickings of resources, collection development librarians are not without tools. Check the catalogs of business and environmental publishers (i.e., Berrett-Koehler, Harvard Business School Press, Adams Media, Chelsea Green, New Society, Portfolio, and Wiley, whose latest entry in its “Dummies” series is Green Business Practices for Dummies [Feb. 2009]). Also, keep track of green business gurus like Bob Willard and Greenbiz's Joel Makower (Strategies for the Green Economy, LJ 10/15/08); they often publish books or videotape their speeches.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing collection builders is that each industry's greening is unique—beyond the basic conservation tips, there are no ready-made formulas. Print manuals pertaining to LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) or ISO certification are pricey; entrepreneurs looking for help may need to contact their respective trade associations.

What follows is a sampling of green business materials—books, magazines, DVDs, and web sites—available today. A few are not much more than simple checklists of office practices best suited to mom-and-pop green business newbies (True Green at Work and 101 Ways To Turn Your Business Green); a couple engage the scientific, vexingly complex aspects of business greening and would belong on a sustainability manager's desk (e.g., The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook); some could be considered “enviro-bios” of firms in the vanguard of environmentally, socially responsible behavior (e.g., Stirring It Up); and one or two titles offer a narrower focus (e.g., The Green Marketing Manifesto). Starred (*) items are essential for most collections.