Pink Elephant Blog
A Greener Pink
In the office I've begun socializing the idea of Pink becoming greener. So, what can we do to become more environmentally responsible? Here are a few thoughts we're working with: When a large part of our business is classroom-based Education - there's certainly a lot of paper flying about! So let's start thinking “Reduce, Recycle and Re-use”. We've already decided not to give out those massive books and binders at our Conferences. All sessions will be loaded up on the web - in advance of the event - so that customers can browse, download and print (if they wish). Not only do we reduce the amount of paper and other materials, but there's a lot less stuff to ship. I wish we could dramatically reduce the amount of travel many of our Consultants have to undertake. We're very motivated to get creative here because it's not just the carbon emissions from the cars and planes but also the real hardship on them and their families when work often means leaving on Sundays and returning on Fridays. So, we've been doing a couple of things to try and head in the right direction with travel (forgive the pun). One thing is to make a real effort to hire Consultants nearer to where our customers are located. This might sound easy, but it's a real challenge when you don't know where the next big implementation project might come from - Seattle or Dubai? But we have made improvements in this area in recent years. In North America, for example, we now have many staff located all across the US and Canada, not just in driving distance of a local Pink office - which used to be a hiring criterion! Another choice we're making is to invest in products and strategies that are more lasting for the customer. An example of a change we're making in this area is around our PinkSCAN product. Instead of a small team of Pink Consultants showing up on an annual or bi-annual basis to do a process assessment - we'll come along once and teach you how to do your own assessments using an online version of PinkSCAN. As the saying goes “we want to teach you how to fish instead of fishing for you”. This might seem like we're doing ourselves out of business - but we just think it's the right thing to do. The customer becomes self-sufficient, learns new skills, and they also save money. Our Consultants prefer the new challenges instead of repetitive work, and we feel good for doing the right thing. We're also putting a lot more of our experience and guidance on the web. Not just with the online PinkSCAN but also into our PinkATLAS knowledge database. Again, why do we want to give the customer cheaper alternatives to the relatively high price of a Consultant? Well, because it's the right thing to do, and Pink becomes a little greener in the process!
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