Why Businesses Are Going Green

By Mark G. McLaughlin

To celebrate the release of the eco-concious 2017 CT6 Plug-In, Cadillac embarked on a 31-mile drive through Silicon Beach which highlighted some of the most environmentally friendly locations in the Golden State. Check out the video above and be sure to scroll to the bottom of this page for part two of the journey.

There are a lot of good reasons for any company to go green, becoming more sustainable is more than just doing something that's good for business - it's doing something that is good, period. California, like each of its many businesses, is built upon dreams. Going green is the next big dream; and it doesn't just fuel growth and progress— it can also bring about the kind of change that has always been and will be synonymous with California.

Going Green Is The future - And California Companies Are Leading The Way

California's businesses are less about concrete and steel than they are about imagination and vision, so is going green. Making the world a better, cleaner, safer place is not merely a goal - it is a challenge, and Californians are all about challenge.

From Hollywood to Silicon Valley, California's businesses have and continue to make the impossible possible. Just as many California companies have changed the worlds of tech and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat and Slack are all based in California), they have also changed the way companies and people do business. In the city of Los Angeles, a Green Business Program initiative that has been underway since 2014 provides businesses with free assistance in their efforts to go green, allowing LA area companies to become more efficient and sustainable. Even earlier, in 2009, California published "the most advanced climate adaptation plan of any state in the nation," according to Yale Environment 360. The Golden State has always taken the lead on green initiatives, and aims to continue to do so in the future.

Going Green Is Great For The Bottom Line

Just this March, LA hosted the Environmental Media Association's very first Impact Summit, which seeks to educate business owners and others on sustainability practices that will help "create a path to a better tomorrow." Of the summit, Forbes wrote, "The fact is that with better knowledge comes better decision-making and the summit explored the many ways in which businesses can collaborate to both make a profit and at the same time, improve the world."

Many companies in and around LA are doing just that by installing solar panels on their lawns or roofs, thus generating at least some of their own energy. The most committed of those firms even make more energy than they use, so instead of buying energy, they sell it back to Southern California Edison and other power companies. Others are investing in more efficient lighting, such as LEDs, and still other companies, like California's Sun Microsystems JAVA, reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by using energy-saving technology and allowing many of its employees to work from home. Working out ways to make energy production and consumption cleaner and more efficient also means helping to make it more affordable, which is good for any company's bottom line.

Going Green Unites Employees And Execs In A Common Cause

Going green is more than just putting up solar panels, going paperless, reducing the environmental footprint and recycling. It is a movement, a lifestyle, and a way of doing business. It is also something that people at all levels of a company—from the mail room to the board room—can get behind. This offers everyone in a company the opportunity to participate in the same exercise, and to help reach a common and lofty goal. Having a common goal builds camaraderie and fosters team work, it gives an added purpose to the time employees spend at or doing work. Working together for something perceived as the common good is a tremendous morale booster, and when people feel good about themselves and their company, it shows in their performance.

In fact, an article from UCLA cites a study that found that employees of green companies are 16 percent more productive than average. Environmental economist and UCLA Professor Magali Delmas says, "Adopting green practices isn't just good for the environment. It's good for your employees and it's good for your bottom line. Employees in such green firms are more motivated, receive more training, and benefit from better interpersonal relationships. The employees at green companies are therefore more productive than employees in more conventional firms."

Going Green Is PR Gold

For many consumers and investors, particularly those in California, when it comes to buying goods and services or putting up capital, how a company acts is almost as important as what it makes. No company that wants to do business in California can afford to be branded as a polluter, an energy-guzzler, a water hog or politically incorrect. Sustainability matters to consumers - especially the increasingly important Millennial market. In 2015, Forbes named visible sustainability as the No. 1 trend companies should embrace when marketing to their younger consumer base, citing that "Millennials have stronger connections with brands that promote sustainability in addition to corporate responsibility."

Going green makes a company look good on so many levels. Taking measures to be more energy conscious and environmentally friendly greatly improves a company's image - and gives its public relations people a lot of opportunities to get their company into the news, and in a good way. In general, people like to do business with people who think like they do, act like they do and cherish the same values that they do - and going green hits the mark on all counts.