A majority of small to medium businesses want to cut waste, save money and help the planet stay a little greener, but costs of sustainability programs and a perception that customers don’t care if a company participates keep businesses from moving foward with them.
The August study by Cox Enterprises surveyed 2,012 decision makers among companies with less than 1,000 workers. Cox Enterprises owns The Atlanta-Journal Constitution and other media, advertising and auto companies.
The survey shows some surprising differences between who is pushing sustainable business practices and what regions of the country are taking the lead.
Women business leaders are friendlier toward green practices, such as recycling or switching to low-energy LED lights, with 70 percent of business women committed to increasing sustainability efforts, compared to 62 percent of male leaders.
When surveyed about current practices, a majority of recycling programs were led by women (61 percent) compared to men (54 percent); as were the use of energy efficient lighting (61 percent by women, 56 percent by men); and offering workers the change to telecommute (37 percent by women; 27 percent by men).
Men were more likely to name impediments to implementing such programs. They more often were unwilling to pay additional costs for such programs (men, 33 percent, compared to women at 26 percent); said customers didn’t care about such programs (men, 32 percent compared to 24 percent for women); and men said more often sustainability programs had no direct business impact (32 percent to women’s 25 percent).
Among regions,the Southeast and Atlantic Seaboard were lumped together as the laggards in using sustainability programs. Fifty nine percent of the companies along the Atlantic Seaboard had some program, compared to the leader, the Pacific region with participation at 67 percent.
The most popular money, energy and product-saving programs are using supplies efficiently, such as double-sided printing (61 percent) energy-efficient lighting and equipment (57 percent), recycling (56 percent), paperless billing (53 percent) and using technology to conduct meetings (46 percent).
Sixty percent of companies cited cost reduction and company values as the two factors driving sustainability programs.
Find out more at http://coxconserves.com/survey.
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