Spring 2009 issue of Horizons

Raise Your Expectations CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS AND BUSINESS CONSULTANTS

It’s hard to argue with those goals, particularly in today’s economic climate.

In the design and construction realm, sustainability strives to create healthy, productive places and spaces that connect people to their communities and to each other. But it's also about aligning organizations with strategic business goals and positioning them to endure and thrive. Sometimes that means building smaller, more efficient facilities – or not building at all. It may involve exploring alternatives for accommodating the same number of employees in a smaller space or adapting existing facilities to support a leaner organization. important conclusion is that what’s good for business and what’s good for the environment are increasingly the same. That's good news for all of us. Many high-profile businesses have already made the connection between environmentalism and business strategy. Amory Lovins, chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute, sums it up this way: “Using energy more efficiently offers an economic bonanza – not because of the benefits of stopping global warming but because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper than buying it.” There aremany examples. General Mills found that it could sell oat hulls as fuel, rather than paying to send them to a landfill as waste; the company now recycles 86 percent of its solid waste, making more money than it previously spent on disposal. DuPont has raised its production nearly 30 percent over a decade, but reduced its energy use by 7 percent and its greenhouse gas emissions by 72 percent. Wal-Mart is funding research by major truck manufacturers to develop the first diesel-hybrid tractor- Regardless of what form sustainability takes, the

“Using energy more efficiently offers an economic bonanza – not because of the benefits of stopping global warming but because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper than buying it.” Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

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