Eco-Efficiency: How Businesses Can Protect the Environment and Still save Money
Initially, when Henry Kravis and his partner George Roberts set up Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) in the mid 70’s with the support of the First Chicago Corporation, the firm’s focus was in leveraged buyouts. More recently, however, in a drive to make the businesses in their portfolio greener, they have launched a unique project that has totally changed the way business concerns and environmental groups work.
Green business processes became more broadly accepted in 2008 when Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co’s Henry Kravis and the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) merged. Their company mission is to offer encouragement to their affiliated firms in opposing environmental menaces such as climate change and flagrant consumption of water resources. Eco-efficiency (the term was originally used by the WBCSD) is the formula applied to achieve these aims, by using policies like reducing the intensity of materials, optimizing data centers for efficiency and increasing the durability of products. Even though the project was an enormous success, staff just didn’t realize how far reaching the results were until Ken Mehlman, the person in charge of the program, examined the first year’s figures.
Ken Mehlman found that the project was not just reducing their environmental impact, but in addition it was saving companies a significant sum of money. Up to now, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and Ken Mehlman have succeeded in getting nearly every associated business organization taking part in the program. When you consider that this group of business organizations is worth nearly $100,000,000,000 dollars, you can imagine what a challenge this actually was.
KKR along with Ken Mehlman are developing the initial Green Portfolio project. For example, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co got together with the Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Corps Program an enterprise that instructs students studying for an MBA how to promote cost-efficient, green techniques. Moreover, Ken Mehlman has worked closely with KKR to create analytical tools that firms can utilize to evaluate resources. Systems such as these can track an organization’s environmental impact and identify any problem areas.
Today’s business world has been altered forever by the efforts of these groups. So, in conclusion, the work of these organizations has made environmentally friendly business practice not only viable, but commercially desirable, and their novel ideas are setting a new standard in the business world of today.
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