An Old Saybrook-based compliance information company is planning to add a sustainability program to its product line, and to do so, BLR is using its own company and staff as its Guinea pigs.
In February, BLR launched its “Green Team,” which is working under a one-year plan to cut company costs for utilities and paper. The company is hoping its results will convince potential clients of the program’s worth.
The BLR Green Team’s efforts to create a program to help raise eco-awareness, implement sustainable practices and educate employees on conservation issues has earned it the Energy Summit 2010’s Advocacy-Organization award.
BLR Chief Operating Officer Brian Gurnham said the company’s environmental team came to him about a year ago and proposed the establishment of sustainability practices within BLR.
“My background is in the environmental field, but being the omnipresent business person, I said, ‘This is good, but let’s look at how we can implement this and learn from our experience at BLR, so we can productize it,’” Gurnham said.
Under the plan, BLR, a specialty publisher for human resources, compensation, safety and environment materials, would develop a set of green training courses for use within BLR.
“It would be on things like reducing paper usage, turning off monitors and lights at night and unplugging chargers when not in use,” Gurnham said. “If we can do this internally and demonstrate cost savings, we can make a product out of it and sell it to our subscribers.”
The BLR Green Team has set goals of reducing electricity use costs by 10 percent; reducing paper use by five percent; reducing waste by increasing recycling and generating 1,200 leads through the BLR Green Team blog.
Green Team Leader Ana Ellington said the company is improving on its conservation efforts.
“Our monitoring shows that we have reduced our average energy usage by 90 kilowatt hours monthly,” Ellington said. “That’s not a huge amount but it’s definitely a savings, as we have also recently added new servers and we are doing much of our printing in-house.”
Gurnham said the proof will be in the numbers.
“It makes for a much stronger sales pitch if we’ve done it ourselves,” Gurnham said.
Part of the program involves some friendly reminders to those employees who are violating the new policies.
“When we implemented our ‘Shut it off” campaign, one of the big offenders was the monitor,” Gurnham said. “The Green Team, with tongue in cheek, decided to go around and issue people cute little citations.”
Gurnham said most people have obliged, agreeing that they needed to remember to shut down electronics at night more often, while others were a little offended at being called out.
“It’s all in the concept of learning what works,” he said of the citations and posters hanging all over the building touting the program. “You’re never going to get 100 percent compliance, but it’s all about educating people.”
The Green Team is encouraging the company’s 153 employees to use notepads created from rebound recycled paper, print on both sides of paper and unplug unused electronics.
The company has also replaced all of its old CRT monitors with more energy-efficient LCD monitors. Gurnham said the energy savings helped the company recoup its expenses in about 18 months.
While the Green Team continues to substantiate BLR’s savings under the program, it is creating a “return on investment calculator” so potential customers can see the numbers in black and white.
BLR is hoping for high interest when the product is ready to launch. Gurnham said a recent survey of over 600 respondents showed that companies are interested in BLR creating a library relating to sustainability and green practices.
“It came in with about a 45 percent strong interest level,” Gurnham said. “It was a surprise to me. It’s been sort of gradual (the interest in creating green workplaces) and I think it took a bit of a hit in the current economy. It’s clearly coming back up in terms of interest level.”
