Based on my quick glances at your projects–both the ones we looked at in class yesterday and the ones I went back to and looked at last night–all of your groups still have a fair amount of revision to do, which is fine. You have the time to make the changes.
First, let me go through a couple of broad concerns, and then I am going to focus on the green business philosophy section.
Broad Concerns:
Research/Outside Sources: So far, I’m not seeing a lot of good library-research type sources. You’re doing a good job with field work and with finding online sources, but without some peer reviewed sources to balance the information, you risk being a little lopsided in your information. See a balance. The Green Business Philosophy as well as your methodology or recommendations sections seem to be a good place to incorporate books on green business. In recent years, business scholars have published a great deal on green business models. I’ll email you the PowerPoint on outside research that we went through before spring break; I think your groups may benefit from reviewing the presentation and employing some of the techniques included in it.
Quality of Writing: I’m less concerned about this issue right now, as you have plenty of time to go back and address it; just remember that it needs addressed. Right now, I am seeing numerous wordy and unclear constructions, typos and grammatical errors, and formatting flaws. Once you feel like your content is under control, spend a lot of time on the writing: read portions aloud, rewrite sentences for clarity, and use your St. Martin’s Handbooks.
Green Business Philosophies:
You seem to be making these more difficult than they have to be. Broadly, a philosophy or theory is something that you later put into practice, something that informs your methodologies and habits. Don’t overly rely on any of the models I’m about to show you or other models; I want you to be original. However, a quick google search turned up some concise and clear green business philosophies from actual companies:
Also, I found this NY Times article that may interest you.
What should your green business philosophy say?
Imagine that the owner or manager of the business you are working with asked you to answer three questions at the beginning of your report:
- What do you mean when you say “green business”?
- Why is green business important?
- How does green business apply to my business?
All-in-all, your green business philosophy will probably be 1/2 to a full page single-spaced, and your group may put it before you describe your purpose and, therefore, use it to transition into more particular details, or you may place it after you describe your project’s purpose, which help provide some background for concepts you apply. You may not need sources in your green business philosophy, but they could be especially helpful in defining what you mean by green business or in explaining why green business practices are important in 2008.
A Closer Look: Now let’s take a closer look at the two green business philosophies that we looked at in class yesterday. I’m going to make some comments about them, but I am not going to be exhaustive in my comments for two reasons. First, I don’t want to overly tear apart either group’s work. Second, I don’t want to be so specific in my feedback that I essentially rewrite the group’s philosophy for them.
First Example: W.T. Young Library Group
Green Business Plan
“We no longer see the world as a single entity. We’ve moved to cities and we think the economy is what gives us our life, that if the economy is strong we can afford garbage collection and sewage disposal and fresh food and water and electricity. We go through life thinking that money is the key to having whatever we want, without regard to what it does to the rest of the world.” [Jeff's Comment: Beginning with a quotation like this can be a good idea, especially if it's something so rich in meaning and complexity that it somehow informs the rest of the philosophy. You may even choose to return to this author's words later in the philosophy or in your concluding remarks for the whole project to show how this person really informs your thinking. Be sure, though, that you footnotes the sources of this quotation.]
A quote from a famous Environmentalist, David Suzuki, who believes now is the time to look to the future and not just to live in the present [This sentence should be addressed for clarity and grammatical correctness; right now, it's missing a verb. Environmentalist David Suzuki believes now is the time to look to the future and to stop living in the present.]. He hints towards the idea that the human race has waited too long to do something about the world we live in. In Suzuki’s eyes, we have to start taking action to protect the environment and world we live in. There are [I noticed this structure in all of the drafts we looked at yesterday; remember our discussions from last week and watch out for "there are" or "there is" sentence constructions.] both large and small choices we can make to improve the world, such as sharing rides to work or using solar powered cars to cut down on emissions. This idea of green business has not always been as influential as it is today. Around the time of the Industrial Revolution, the human cultural saw no advantage to conserving energy or reducing waste because our culture was unable to clearly foresee the detrimental hazards that develops from overconsumption and the linear system of principals followed by people in the early 19th century. Comparative to today’s population, who is now beginning to see the repercussions occurring from an apathetic population during Industrial Revolution. Some of such environmental repercussions include deforestation, polluting drinkable water sources, killing off species because of habitat reduction, and mountain top removal. All these instances lead to the need for an immediate reworking of the processes in which businesses perform. The human race has waited as long as we possible could to take action. The time is now! [Jeff's Comment: Overall, I like numerous things about this green business philosophy: it's concise, it's persuasive, it's full of specific examples of environmental destruction, and it emphasizes the urgency of the situation. But what doesn't it do? I'm not sure that it says enough about what green business is for this group. In other words, what does "green business" mean for this group, and how does it apply to the W.T. Young Library? I don't think that it needs to be much longer, but I think it should gesture towards specific implications and ideas for the library before moving more particularly to them in the next section of the project. The call for action (the last three sentences), though, should probably be kept at the end of the philosophy, as they seem to be rhetorically effective and persuasive as the last remarks.]
Second Example: Raddison Group
Green Philosophy
The environment and ecosystem in which we are a part of is comprised of resources that are only available in a finite amount [Jeff's Comment: I hate to point out flaws in one group's writing, but since the whole class doesn't know who wrote this, I think this situation offers an appropriate time to reiterate some of the style lessons we addressed last week. This opening sentence and some others in this philosophy are probably unclear due to their abundance in words. A shorter, more direct sentence here would work better and say the same thing, and I think it could even be combined with the second sentence: Our environment's resources are limited, and our consumption draws into question the earth's ability to sustain human life. In all of your projects, look for instances like this where you can use fewer words and/or combine sentences to be clearer in your meaning.]. Due to our society’s compulsive consuming habits, over the years, the sustainability of our environment has come into question. With us being the dominant species occupying God’s green earth, we are the primary consumers of these resources and the responsibility of sustaining our environment falls solely on us. [Jeff's comment: Again, I think we can look for ways to reduce words and be more direct. "With us being the dominant species occupying God's green earth" seems wordy, and I think we can replace these ten words with five: As the earth's dominant species, we use many of the earth's resources; therefore, we have the responsibility of protecting and sustaining the enivironment.]
Muhammad [Mahatma] Gandhi tells us, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” As individuals we can accomplish a great deal by simply doing the small things. For example, we can recycle recycling is a great way to conserve resources by using recyclable products that can be reused in the future. Recycling our waste is probably one of the most basic steps to benefiting the environment. There are [Again, like in the last example, we want to watch out for this weak subject verb construction: "There are..."] several small steps we could take to make our lives more environmentally efficient. But unfortunately most of our society thinks that these steps are tedious and that the repercussions of not taking care of our environment will not affect them. The harsh reality of the situation is that with the questionable carrying capacity of mother earth, eventually our luck as well as our resources will run up. [Jeff's Comment: Whereas the first example we looked at was maybe a little too short, I feel as this example might be a little too long. Put yourself in the position of the person reading this report. He or she will probably want something that is direct and clear in meaning. The statistics that come in the next portion of the report will either confirm or challenge these opinions. Also, I like the last point made here about resources running out; however, I think this group also made this point in the first paragraph of their philosophy.]
We can also help preserve the environment by practicing what most like to call “green business”. Green business can be defined as the practice of conducting everyday business as environmentally efficient as possible. Due to the size of many corporations, the steps taken to practice green business can be much more complex than the things that we as individuals can do to help. But the great sacrifices corporations would have to make would yield astronomical benefits in making our planet more sustainable. [Jeff's comment: I really like what the group does here to define their terminology. Perhaps they can take it one step further and connect their green business philosophy to the hotel sector to identify guiding principles for their project.]
Corporations are powerful entities. They generate billions of dollars annually and shape our society’s economic wellbeing [Jeff's comment: I like the way this paragraph opens, and I think that the paragraph should continue with a statement on corporate responsibility. Stakeholder theory or environmental ethics come to mind: Why is it important for a large corporation like Radisson to care about the environment? The rest of this paragraph could probably be omitted to provide space to go in that direction.]. Corporations use advertising to target buyers to consume their products and in some ways shape our popular culture. Everywhere you look you are sure to see some type of label or marking that identifies a different corporation. Driving across the United States it is not uncommon to see large factories owned by these corporations from the roadside pumping out cloud after cloud of thick, black smog. When you see this you might think to yourself, “How is this legal? How can these corporations be allowed to dump all of this pollutions and contamination into our air?” To think that thousands of factories all over the Unites States are doing this all around the clock is spine chilling.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are several steps businesses can take to become more environmentally sound. Many corporations have already taken the necessary steps to become more “green.” [Jeff's comment: Remember, you are writing to the business, so address to them, and maybe this is the place--if you don't add it in above--where you can define the green business principles that are important for the hotel industry. The rest of your project will then put these philosophical principles into practice.] In our project we have selected to analyze the hotel industry and its involvement in green business practices. The Radisson downtown Lexington, the hotel we are working with firsthand, claims to be one of the greenest hotels in the industry. But after looking at their numbers and at some of the ways they did things, our groups has decided that there are some serious improvements that could be made to the way the Radisson did a few things.
Adopting a green business plan is very important. If done correctly, corporations can have a huge positive impact on our environment. and its sustainability
Final Remarks:
I hope the above remarks and comments about green business will be helpful to your groups. This blog post took me a considerable amount of time to write, and I thank the W.T. Library and Radisson groups for allowing me to comment on their work. I only offer constructive criticism because I think that all groups are making similar mistakes and can benefit from my commentary.
