Regional action network helps businesses put sustainability to work
‘I haven’t quite seen anything like sustainability to inspire innovation, engage employees,’ says sustainability activist
Tuesday September 29, 2009 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
An action network in northeast Ohio, Entrepreneurs for Sustainability (E4S), is helping businesses put sustainability to work with the view that sustainability principles are drivers for new business opportunities and tools to improve the quality of life in the region.

“I haven’t quite seen anything like sustainability to inspire innovation (and) engage employees,” says Holly Harlan, founder and president of E4S, who has more than 30 years experience in business, the last 10 of those with the network.

“Once you start to look through the lens of sustainability and whole system thinking you see a more elegant innovative solution to our current challenges and you see more possibilities for how we can create the world we want to live in for the future.”

A network of more than 7,000 leaders who are putting the principles of sustainability into practice, E4S is based on the premise that building a sustainable economy starts one business at a time, one project at a time.

The organization seeks to support businesses in their sustainability efforts by connecting them with another for support and ideas, offering learning programs and resources, as well as providing implementation services.

Launched in 2000, E4S has a plethora of success stories already.

A regional potato chip company is taking steps to improve its energy efficiency, thanks to an introduction by Harlan to another organization that has already implemented an innovative approach to energy use.

The two companies are now working together to design an advanced energy efficient system for the potato chip firm.

A small metal stamping company which participated in an E4S eight-month strategic planning process for sustainability implementation set a goal to reduce its waste to zero by 2013. A year and a half after creating that objective the organization has cut its waste by 84 per cent.

It is also in the process of investing in an energy efficient lighting project that will diminish its lighting energy needs by 70 per cent, improve the quality of lighting, with a return on investment of 50 per cent.

A start-up company is developing a new business model around waste issues based on the forward-thinking biomimicry approach, which is a way to design that learns from the best practices in nature. This business is looking to the patterns of the honeybee to design its organizational framework, expecting that the results will be more efficient and productive.

Harlan says her vision is to see at least 10 per cent of the 160,000 businesses in the region engaged in putting sustainability into action — integrating people, planet and profit to create a healthier, more prosperous economy and community — by 2019.

— Read an upcoming article on the future direction of sustainability

To learn more about E4S, visit www.e4s.org.

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