It’s Not Easy Being Green…or Is It?
We hear it time and again; going green makes business sense. Signs everywhere point toward more environmentally-conscious consumers, employees and investors, coupled with basic cost-savings opportunities and amazing incentives for investments in energy and water efficiency measures.
It’s no wonder then, that at ACCION USA we found ourselves listening intently when focus group participants communicated a sense of confusion on the definition of a green business, and a belief that going green meant spending a lot of money. We felt the need to lead the way for our clients by bringing in experts as part of a Green Speaker Series that began shortly after the launch of our green loan program, and would serve to demystify some of the terms and myths around green business.
We’re at the half-way point in our green business speaker series. Participants have hailed from all over the United States but have also signed in from the UK, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Vietnam and New Zealand! Here’s where our series has led us and our 72 small business owner participants:
- Green; it’s not the word. It’s the Why. Guest presenter Deborah Guyer Greene, co-founder of epOxyGreen Eco Design Center in Venice, CA and green consultant laid the framework for branding your business as green in the marketplace. Participants understood that green ‘is not a Band Aid and the market will notice if you are using green that way’. Sincerity is key!
- Saving Energy and Water Can mean Tangible Cost Savings. Chris Moyer of the National Restaurant Association’s Conserve program provided 10 ways to increase a small business’ profit by decreasing energy and water usage.
- The Time is Now. Leading Energy Auditor Rise Engineering walked participants through the energy assessment process and highlighted how much small businesses can save by taking steps to becoming energy efficient today.
- Be personal and transparent in your green marketing. Kiwano Marketing highlighted 8 Green Marketing Tips and 4 Green Marketing Mistakes during a lively exchange of ideas on social media marketing and crafting a green message. Check out Kiwano’s blog post for additional take-aways.
Have you taken a moment to see what’s up next in our green business speaker series? Check out www.accionusa.org/workshops to see descriptions of our webinar on June 8th, All About Green Business Certifications and ‘Sustainability and Leadership’ on June 22nd.
Green Marketing Tips For Small Businesses
There’s never been a better time to go green: It’s an easy way for businesses looking to grow during the recession to save money and increase profits. Going green can help your small business in a big way by tapping into eco-conscious consumers while operating on the cutting edge of innovative small business practices. Knowing how to market a business as eco-friendly is a must nowadays, and that’s why ACCION USA and Kiwano Marketing partnered to provide a free, online workshop to help small business owners learn how to incorporate sustainability into their marketing programs.
But this is not all. We know that it takes green ($) to go green. As a leader in microfinance, ACCION USA recently launched a green microloan program for small businesses across the U.S. interested in investing in eco-friendly products and services and energy-efficiency measures. ACCION USA is bringing to the table Kiwano Marketing as a lead thinker in the realm of green marketing for small business owners. A regular in industry publications such as The Green Economy Post, Business Management Daily, Globe-NET, Charity Village, The Matter Network, and The Green Pages (among others), Kiwano uses a holistic approach to green marketing that emphasizes tracking and metrics, culminating in actionable, hands-on marketing programs that fit any budget and have little impact on the environment.
On May 25th, Kiwano founder Sofia Ribeiro will lead participants through a class on Green Marketing Tips, highlighting various ways that small businesses can create effective, inexpensive campaigns that improve brand awareness – and increase sales revenues. On this webinar, you will learn:
- What truly makes a green brand
- How to craft a personable green message
- How to prevent being accused of greenwashing
- The best ways to generate business from green consumers and businesses
- What green marketing strategies work for small businesses on a tight budget
Details:
Turning Green into Gold: Green Marketing Tips For Sustainable Businesses
When: May 25, at 1:00pm PST / 4:00pm EST
Where: Online
Cost: Free
Register now.
Perhaps you’re well on your way to incorporating eco-friendly products or services into your business. Now sign up to take the steps to creating a more profitable business through the best green marketing techniques!
Hope is the Color Green: ACCION USA’s All New Green Loan Program
The birth of the modern environmental movement is celebrated each year on April 22nd. Today is the movement’s 40th anniversary and the day ACCION USA, a pioneer in U.S. microfinance, chose to launch its Small Business Green Loan Program.
Thanks to ACCION USA's Green Loan Program, entrepreneurs will have the green loans they need to build a strong business AND a healthy planet.
Among other things, ACCION USA’s Green Loan Program seeks to help entrepreneurs to leverage their profits to improve the larger community. After a year of dialogue with small businesses, we learned that their largest challenge to going green was lack of access to the support to take the leap. However, with the right financing and training, small businesses have the opportunity of the decade. Amid economic turmoil and hurting profits, “greening” has the potential to slash costs through energy efficiency and attract new environmentally conscious consumers – all the while making the earth a better place to inhabit.
On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Today, in 2010, we’re struggling with similar issues that we did 40 years prior – we are a country at war, struggling with an economic downturn, looking for hope. In many ways, the Obama Administration has turned hope the color green. In no other time in history have small businesses had so many incentives to go green. And even with all those incentives, they are asking for a hand up to make the first step. Microlenders like ACCION USA are uniquely positioned to bridge that gap for weatherization contractors, restaurants, transportation, corner stores, retail and offices alike.
Learn more about ACCION USA’s Small Business Green Loan Program at www.accionusa.org/green and spread the word. Happy 40th Anniversary of Earth Day!
Tags: earth day, green, small business
Sneak Peek: Small Business Green Loan Program
With the Green Loan Program launching on April 22nd (just 16 days away!) we thought we would let the cat out of the bag a little early. But only for our most ardent online supporters, of course! Join us on April 13th for a lunch time webinar that will tell you all you need to know about ACCION USA’s Green Loan Program pilot in Massachusetts and New York. It’s an interactive experience that will allow you to provide feedback and ask questions. Feel free to spread the word to anyone you think would be interested in helping small businesses go green!
Date: Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EDT
Registration
This webinar is designed for bankers, small business consultants, and anyone else that works with small businesses. It will show you how to help small business get the money they need to go green with an ACCION USA Green Loan for Small Businesses.
Green loan products include:
- Energy Efficiency Loans: Saving energy = saving money and increasing profits
- Grow Your Green Business: Loans for small businesses that provide green products or services
If you know a small business that is struggling to find ways to cut costs and access new, green-conscious consumers, sign up for this “partners only” webinar today. Space is limited!
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. “See” you on the 13th!
Tags: green small business, greenm small business loans, partners, training, weatherization, webinars
Green Education Critical to Green Action
Excitement was brewing at ACCION USA when clients participated in focus groups to test components of our new Green Loan Program. Participants felt that ACCION USA’s Green Loan Program is “going to become so important” to business owners as they innovate in the face of a struggling economy. While participants entered the focus group skeptical about their ability to green their businesses – stating that “going green is too costly,” attitudes shifted after learning about the benefits, proving the necessity for education.
The focus groups taught us a lot about our clients’ motivations and challenges. At the end of the night, it was clear that our work was cut out for us. The participants raised the following questions:
- How should ACCION USA educate clients on the benefits of greening their businesses and being more energy efficient (i.e., tax credits, energy savings, new client base)?
- How should ACCION USA market the green loan to the average small business owner concerned with the bottom line?
- How can ACCION USA reach clients who run less traditional businesses that don’t have a storefront or an office?
- How can ACCION USA implement and teach clients about the benefits of an energy audit, an important aspect of the green loan program?
- What measures can ACCION USA take to offer clients networking opportunities to share best practices and learn from other green borrowers?
Answers to these questions and more will be presented on Earth Day, when we’ll unveil all the details of ACCION USA’s Green Loan Program!
by Emily Cunningham
Micro-boosting Weatherization Programs
We are the weatherization nation – and so much the better for it. Last year, the Obama Administration injected $8 billion of stimulus funding into the weatherization industry, with a lofty tripartite objective: create green un-exportable jobs, save energy consumers cash, and make the environment happy.
But what happens when government money is injected into a system that doesn’t exist? Community, government, and for-profit groups scramble to create the infrastructure. After much “building”, what has been made clear is that “there are currently not enough skilled workers and green entrepreneurs to expand weatherization and efficiency retrofit programs on a national scale,” as Vice President Biden concluded in a recent task force report on the subject.
- Contractors need loans for items like blower doors, which are used to check a building’s insulation.
ACCION USA is currently talking with groups in Massachusetts and New York about leveraging microlending to help contractors jump into weatherization and/or aid those already in the game to expand to meet growing the demand. While many states have used government funding to provide incentives for weatherization, many of these incentives are rebates. And without the money to front the cost, many contractors are opting out.
By incorporating a microlending component into weatherization programs, contractors will be able to move quickly – reacting to the market. Once they’ve taken hold of the weatherization opportunity, these businesses will continue to flourish, in large part due to the education and credit training received with their microloans. So even after the nation has been duly weatherized, contractors will continue to employ and grow.
Do you think microlending has a part to play in weatherization?
ACCION USA Takes the Energy Star Challenge
ACCION USA kicked the year off right by pledging to reduce our carbon footprint in 2010! We created an internal committee of passionate staffers and signed onto the Energy Star Challenge to hold our feet to the fire. We figured that greening our own operations would be an important step in promoting green business practices to microentrepreneurs.
To start, ACCION USA staffers in each office volunteered to be a green champion— each responsible for surveying our current green (or not-so-green) status. The survey considers the following:
- Facilities and Energy Use: Utilities, Lighting, Electronics, and HVAC
- Water Conservation
- Waste: Reduction, Recycling, and Printing
- Green Product Purchasing
- Transportation
The survey will help the green committee determine ACCION USA’s baseline. Once the baseline is established, we’ll be able to create a plan and track our progress (which, of course, we’ll report back to all of you!).
To rally our entire organization around the green theme, the committee will be throwing a St. Paddy’s Day pot luck and, you guessed it, staff will be asked to bring their favorite green (or green-colored) food. And, of course, we’ll post pictures.
Read more about the Energy Star Challenge and sign up to take it yourself!
Why America’s Small Businesses Aren’t Going Green (and How ACCION USA is Changing That)
“Going green seems like a no-brainer—businesses can save both money and the planet, what’s not to love?” When we set out to launch our green loan product, that’s what we thought. And then we dug deeper, into the psyche and daily experience of the small businesses we serve. In addition to traditional market research, in April 2009 we executed two focus groups and what we found may surprise you. While small businesses report to “strongly believe in green”, they also:
- Are confused on the definition of a green businesses
- Feel there is a lack of transparency in the small business green market;
- Feel most businesses are not serious about helping the environment, but are looking for a “pat on the back” or a marketing gimmick; and
- Think going green is not economically viable, and should be heavily subsidized.
We can’t ignore the data. Going green can bring green ($) if you have green ($). Microfinance organizations are perfectly poised to pull small businesses out of the same old “I can’t, it’s too expensive” mentality. With the right loan product and support services, small business will see a return on their investment and, at the same time, make the planet a more hospitable place to live. To address the concerns we discovered in our initial research, ACCION USA will launch a green loan program that is:
- Clear on its definition of “green”,
- Focused on energy efficiency and provide clear-cut guidelines to defining green,
- Affordable if not low-cost,
- Industry-specific in terms of support services and marketing, and
- Supported by trusted organizations.
Stay tuned, this month we’re finishing up our second round of focus groups and will release preliminary results right here on Main Street Microfinance. In the meantime, check out our client and green-preneur Brian Duda.
Tags: green business loans
For Small Businesses, Green is the New Black
Green – it’s the new black. But hopefully, it’s more than a fad, or a marketing gimmick – but a real strategy to build our economy and secure our future. At ACCION USA, we spent the better half of 2009 focused on green and how “greening” can help grow small business. Our objective is simple: to provide business owners practical means to improve their profits, their community and their planet.
But how can “greening” grow small business, you ask? Incorporating eco-friendly products and energy-saving measures will be easier than ever! Going green impacts the bottom line and helps small businesses to:
- Access new, green-conscious consumers
- Reduce business energy, water and waste costs
- Participate in the growing green economy
- Hire for green jobs
- Leverage to tax credits and rebate programs
On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this April, ACCION USA will launch a green loan program, so stay tuned for a sneak preview in upcoming weeks.
Jennifer Spaziano, vice president of business development at ACCION USA, ioins Main Street Microfinance as a regular blog contributor, covering green business issues and ACCION USA’s launch into green lending. Stay tuned for news and progress on our green lending initiative!
Tags: business, energy efficiency, green
Running on Alternatives: Meet ACCION USA Client Brian Duda
Brian Duda is an ACCION USA client from Alabama. Through his company DudaDiesel, he sells all the tools that “DIY-ers” need to make their own diesel vehicles run on biodiesel or vegetable oil. His mission is to make alternative fuel methods available to a wider market and to educate people about the use of biodiesel fuels. Elise had a chance to interview him last week about his effect on his local community.
Elise Tosun: Brian, you obviously provide a service whose need has not really been met yet in your community. How does your business support your local community in general?
Brian Duda with bio-fuel processing equipment
Brian Duda: Well, since my business has grown I’ve been able to provide jobs for some locals who do packaging, shipping, and cleaning in my warehouse. I also do a lot to educate my market about alternative fuels. When people want to learn about biodiesel, they know to go to the internet, but they often don’t know where to start. We’ve partnered with a website that provides very comprehensive and organized information to consumers about how to convert their vehicles to run on biodiesels. We direct our customers there so that they’re empowered to do it on their own, and then we sell them the materials to do so.
Another significant way we’re helping the local community is by providing restaurants with a market to sell their used vegetable oil waste. To do this, restaurants usually need to partner with a large company and must sign a multi-year contract. Our relationship is a much more flexible one.
ET: What were some of the challenges you’ve had getting your business to where it is today?
BD: The main challenge for me has been keeping up with demand! My business started straight out of my apartment, but now that I’ve begun selling on the internet there is so much more demand, not only for more of what I already am selling, but also for different products. It’s a tough balance because I want to expand to new products, but I also need to make sure I have the funding in place to keep up with new demand. My products sell out very quickly and keeping them in stock has been challenging.
ET: So has your ACCION USA loan helped out with that problem at all?
BD: Definitely – that’s exactly what I used my loan for. I was able to buy some inventory and now I’m about a month ahead of the curve keeping up with demand.
ET: What does the future hold for DudaDiesel?
BD: First, I really want to work on expanding to new product lines. One of those lines is solar energy; however I need to make sure there’s a market for it first because it’s an expensive investment. Once I have all of the product lines I want to carry, I’ll focus more on biodiesel production. My dream is to get to a point where I am producing fuel of a standard high enough to be sold to vehicles on the highway. Right now, there is one gas station in town that sells diesel at extremely high prices, so I’d like to put a station up right across the street to provide some competition. It would be great to get prices down to a more affordable level for consumers.
ET: Lastly, do you have any words of advice for small business owners who want to get involved in their community?
BD: My main piece of advice is to concentrate on serving your customer base and satisfying the demand that exists in your market, before getting too big too fast. Make sure you’re selling products that people want to buy and more importantly that they can afford. It also helps to team up with local businesses that can help you access different sections of your market.