Not 'Green' Enough

Last week I had an inbound call from a concerned woman from Ontario. Her contention was that there was an environmental impact from phone towers that adversely affected the birds and the honey bees. She wasn't very happy with what we were offering because I think she thought we weren't 'green' enough. I was a little taken aback, because I thought we had been transparent and honest with our audience about what we are trying to accomplish and why we chose to start GO Paperless!

I have to admit, I enjoy these calls, because these are the ones where as a human being you have the most opportunity to grow. You can handle these calls in many ways: become defensive, pass it off to someone else, or just 'put them in their place'. I don't like any of these options so I chose another path. I wanted to engage her in intelligent discourse and try to learn from it.

So we talked for about 10 minutes and had a conversation around what we were doing and why we believe that Paperless Marketing can help our society. I told her about how we need to leverage our existing technological infrastructure and maximize it's potential instead of trying to build new technologies that need natural resources to be developed, deployed and distributed.

New technology innovation costs a lot, takes a long time to get to market, and consumes a lot of natural resources to accomplish. We believe we have the global infrastructure and interconnected technology in place that when maximized for optimization and efficiency can solve a lot of problems for us.

When we decided to start GO Paperless!™ we didn't know anything about the 'green' industry or 'green' washing. We were Green at Being Green™. I wouldn't say I was a green convert and lived a wasteful life before. In truth, a lot of my actions and opinions were sustainable even though I didn't understand the concept of sustainability until recently.

And that's how I started the conversation with the woman from Ontario. I told her that I didn't know about the environmental effect of radio towers. I also told her that it was really hard to keep up with everything going on in the new green-conscious world. I try to keep up the daily news but there is a lot of information out there and most of it is really confusing.

I don't know what 'green' is but I do know how I can be more sustainable with the choices I make. And I think I'd rather be sustainable then green.

I told her that it comes down to choice. We all make choices in our lives, and when it comes to paper we don’t' value it enough. Out of all the natural resources we consume, trees are our front line defense against global warming. Why do we still cut them down? There needs to be an alternative that brings better value to the world using our existing technology.

She was very happy about my responses because there was the awkward moment when she realized that I wasn't 'green' washing but was just part of a new generation of sustainable professionals. I thanked her for her call even though she felt uncomfortable being thanked for calling to complain. I explained how these engagements are valuable because we can learn how to be more sustainable and make informed decisions.

Every decision you make in business has an impact on the environment. Traditionally the equation was simple, people and profits. Now the Triple Bottom Line makes us reevaluate the whole equation and work out a whole new set of rules to make it balance. It's an exciting time because new innovation is the driver of a new sustainable society and we have the capacity to change our habits towards a better future.

GO Paperless!™ is the choice we offer our world. We simply provide the choice between Paper or Paperless™, and ask which would you choose for your sustainable life.