Granola Greg was the speaker at last week’s Economic Club meeting. His topic: The Greening of Corporate America. I know you’ve heard this one by now. It’s all the rage. Our customers are demanding it, we’re told, and besides, “It’s good business.”
Granola Greg explained that energy-efficiency will save us all money and keep the air cleaner. This is true. “Consumers are becoming more aware,” Mr. Greg explained. “They’re researching the products they buy and gathering knowledge about green-friendly materials and practices. They’ll hold you accountable for your processes. In many cases, they already are.”
Now hold it right there. I’m instantly suspicious of any statement that begins, “consumers are becoming more aware.”
Consumers watch “American Idol.” Consumers care where Lindsay Lohan partied last night. Consumers have made chipotle a national rage, even though most of them can’t stand it. No one will ever go poor underestimating the intellectual prowess of American consumers. Then again, I wouldn’t bet against the consumers in a brain bowl against American business executives, who listened to Granola Greg’s admonishments with nodding affirmation and later took the stage to declare themselves thoroughly chastened and ready to do their part to save the Earth.
Well, I want to be a good citizen of the Earth. I like clean air. And I don’t want my carbon footprint to be too big, because that would require new carbon shoes, and have you seen the price on those things?
So I thought I’d try three of Granola Greg’s simpler suggestions. I chose these: Ride your bike to work; use less paper; and have everyone set their computers to hibernate and lose the screen savers. These seemed doable, so I figured I’d try them.
I live eight miles from work. That’s a long ride, but I can use the exercise. I see people riding their bikes all the time. It looks fun! All I needed to do was leave a little earlier. I could be like those hip, trendy CEOs on the Entrepreneur magazine commercials wheeling their bikes through the office. My employees would start inviting me to parties and all kinds of stuff like that.
On my first day riding to work, I discovered these things called hills. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. You don’t notice them much when you drive up or down them in your car. For car drivers, the Earth is 100 percent flat in all places, except maybe mountain passes. We don’t have many of those where I live, but we do have hills.
By the time you’ve ridden up a moderately steep hill, you’re huffing and puffing and sweating like a pig. Invited to a party? Ha! No one will even come near your office. It’s going to smell like B.O. for the next week. How are those guys on the commercials not huffing and puffing as they coolly wheel their bikes through their offices? Jerks!
But I made it. I got to the office. I sat down at my desk. I took a few minutes to catch my breath. OK, about 30 minutes. Finally, I was feeling normal again. Then the phone rang.
“D.F., it’s Jonas,” said a very important client. “Something’s come up and we’d like to bring you in on it. I know it’s short notice, but could you come out to our office later this morning?”
Jonas’ office is on the other side of town. You can get there on the freeway—if you have a car—or you can ride the backroads and you might get there in two hours. By the time Mrs. Krause got to my office with the car, then I drove her home, then I drove all the way to Jonas’ office, I’d only missed about 20 minutes of the strategy session.
As a result of the bike experiment, we made one more car trip to and from the office than we would normally make. I can feel my carbon shoes bursting at the seams.
Using less paper, though, that shouldn’t be too hard. These days, we have email and electronic file storage. Who needs paper? “How about if we print on both sides of the paper?” I asked my vice president for administration.
“We could,” she said, “if we buy a new copier. The one we have doesn’t print double-sided.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Well, remember when we were cutting costs and we got rid of the giant copier in favor of the three small networked ones?” she said. “Remember how it saved us $500 a month?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “I like that $500 a month!”
“Well, kiss it goodbye if we get a double-sided printing copier.”
I didn’t want to kiss it goodbye. I suggested employees manually print on both sides. She suggested the first thing they’d likely print would be their résumés.
We moved on to Number Three: Hibernate your computers and don’t use screen savers.
“But D.F.!” said Bleepleburg. “I just downloaded this dolphin screen saver! I love it!”
“And what about my Ally McBeal screen saver?” said Apothegan. “It runs across the screen in a tasteful professional miniskirt and high-heels, then looks behind to see if any men are following!”
I shook my head. “This is important,” I said. “The fate of Earth hangs in the balance. If we all set our computers to hibernate after 20 minutes of inactivity, it’ll significantly reduce our energy usage and our carbon footprint.”
Apothegan began to cry. “I was sure that the Biscuit was going to go after her!” she sobbed.
“He’s on ‘24’ now, you idiot,” Bleepleburg interjected. “He hates Ally.”
“I hate you!”
I looked out the window. The Earth was still there. Wait. I think someone stole my bike!
It’s not easy being green.
