A few months ago,while visiting certified financial planner Stephen Whipp at his office in Victoria, a new client asked why all the office blue boxes were hidden away. Whipp had unthinkingly followed the corporate tradition of keeping the boxes out of sight. It simply hadn’t occurred to him to showcase the fact that his three-person team recycles, says Whipp, a Manulife Securities Inc. planner committed to socially responsible investing and environment-friendly practices.

“Yet,” he says, “this is what the client was measuring.”

Today, the boxes are out in the open, where clients can see them, he says, adding that clients — new and old — often pass along helpful tips to ensure that Whipp maintains a green office. “These are the kind of things,” he says, “that are always keeping me on my toes.”

Advisors such as Whipp argue that their relationships with staff, clients and their communities at large all improve when they act in an environmentally responsible manner.

Bradley Roulston, a CFP and manager of Nelson & District Credit Union in Nelson, B.C., says trying to shrink your environmental footprint is not only good for the environment’s sake, it’s also smart marketing. For the past several years, polls have indicated that Canadians regularly cite the environment as one of their top issues. Savvy financial advisors recognize that they’re sending a clear message to clients and potential clients that they share their concerns, he says, adding that he mentions the firm’s environmental endeavours in promotional materials sent to clients.

It’s also, in many cases, financially prudent to take the green route. Taking the easy step of switching to low-energy lighting, for instance, translates into found money. “You immediately reduce electricity bills, you reduce maintenance bills and the payback on the conversion to low-energy lighting is very often only one year and no more than two years,” says Colin Isaacs, CEO of sustainable-development firm CIAL Group and of the Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment in Fisherville, Ont. Who better to set a money-saving example than a financial planner?

Whipp takes as many steps as he can to “walk the talk” of environmental sustainability in his office space. He owns a hybrid car and he bicycles to work. His office recycles and composts waste. And he’s diligent about energy efficiency, relying mostly on natural light and keeping the thermostat a few degrees higher in summer and lower in winter. Whipp also sources environmentally responsible office supplies and tends a deck garden for staff use. Before he became an advisor, he worked on environmental and Native rights issues.

Going green is no longer the domain of fringe players, says Isaacs: “Green was a bad word in business until about two or three years ago. It was seen as flaky.”

However, putting green ideas into practice is not as simple as it sounds for many advisors.

“Typically, people behave a little less responsibly at work than they do at home,” says Angie McMurray, founder of Toronto-based waste-management consulting firm McMurray Environmental Solutions Inc. There are several reasons for this, she says. Advisors often work in buildings that are managed by others, so they do not have the same control over heating and lighting, for instance, as they would at home. They also might work with a team whose members are not on the same page with respect to environmental issues. In many cases, there’s simply a lack of ownership regarding the issue at the office, she points out.

“But education tends to be the biggest missing piece,” she says. Employees just don’t know what steps to take to ensure that they are being as environmentally responsible as possible — and it’s up to employers and landlords to guide them, she adds.

The capabilities of recycling centres have changed so much over the past several years that many individuals are unaware of exactly what can go into their blue boxes, she says.

And some of us are skeptical that recycling is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s one of the reasons McMurray is a proponent of feedback and support when it comes to an office’s environmental efforts. Sharing improvements with employees makes it more likely that workers will be inspired to continue on the green route.

@page_break@“I operate from the assumption,” she says, “that people want to do the right thing.”

Large advisory practices may have budgets that can handle formal environmental audits to measure and track their environmental efforts. And, according to Isaacs, it’s not uncommon for smaller businesses to band together in what he calls “environmental clusters,” either because they’re in the same industry or located close to each other in a business park, for instance. “We then work with the group as a whole,” he says.

McMurray says that single practitioners can do their own informal audit by tracking their behaviour for several days and seeing where the weak points emerge. Become conscious of what you’re throwing out, what kind of energy you’re using and how you’re using resources, she suggests. If you stop at Tim Hortons for coffee every morning, for example, note that and vow to bring your own mug. Track what you’re throwing out and recycling, she adds. “Everybody says they don’t print emails,” she says. Clearly, that’s not the case.

Going green is “really about mindfulness,” says Gail Mainster, outreach co-ordinator with the David Suzuki Foundation environmental group in Vancouver. Being mindful takes effort, but she points out that it takes less than a month to create a positive habit; a few changes here and there can add up.



THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY



Like New Year’s resolutions, plans to go green often fall by the wayside as people try to do too much too fast. “It’s about living in a sustainable way,” says McMurray.

Although investing in big-ticket projects such as geothermal heating and cooling systems, solar panels and rooftop gardens is laudable, that’s not always realistic for smaller practices or the independent advisor. However, small improvements done regularly can make a big difference. Here are three steps you can probably implement today in your business to reduce your environmental footprint.

> Move Smarter. One simple way to start is to replace flying with video- or teleconferencing. Roulston, who offers financial planning services in Vancouver and Toronto, used to fly back and forth between the two cities several times a year. Now, he tries to do as much as he can by using technology and avoiding airplanes.

If you have to fly, carbon offsets can alleviate some of the guilt. It also spreads the word that you’re taking the environment seriously, says Isaacs, whose CIAL Group will purchase carbon offsets from a firm and share this information with clients. (Carbon offsets are credits that individuals and companies can purchase to mitigate the impact of greenhouse-gas emissions for which they may be responsible through driving, flying or using electricity.)

Another area to consider is driving. Cutting down on car travel reduces harmful emissions and also saves money. Roulston crunched the numbers several years ago while he was working in Toronto and found that, on average, people were spending about $800 per month on their cars. For the typical worker, that translates into an unsettling 32 hours of work a month devoted to paying for the privilege of driving a car, he says. Roulston decided to take his car off the road and use public transit or his bicycle to get to work. He has rewarded himself for his efforts by taking every Friday off.

Now living in Nelson, Roulston doesn’t even own a car and still rides his bike to work. To encourage the credit union’s employees to follow suit, he is setting up a car-share program. The plan is to have vehicles on-site that will be used by staff for out-of-office meetings, so they aren’t forced to drive in on days on which they have to meet with clients or colleagues at other branches.

Roulston expects the program to pay off in a few ways: there should be a reduction in travel reimbursements; and, with the credit union’s logo prominently displayed on the vehicles, he expects some positive marketing benefits.

> Turn It Off. It may sound simple in principle, but even practiced environmentalists forget to turn off their computers every now and again. According to Mainster, one of the recommended at-work activities to decrease energy waste — turning off a workstation’s power source when you leave the office — is something her office plans to revisit in the coming months. “People forget,” she says. “They get careless.”

Computers are known energy hogs, according to Isaacs. The most environmentally-concious among us make it a habit to switch off the power bar they’ve attached to their computers every evening and weekend, he adds, to ensure that the devices aren’t even using so-called “phantom power.”

To cut energy use further, Isaacs says, more companies are choosing to equip their employees with laptops. Docking stations then replace the traditional PCs. “In the office, with a monitor and keyboard, it behaves the same as a regular computer,” he says. “But it also means that when they leave the office to go home in the evening, they can take the laptop with them. There’s dramatically less energy consumed.”

> Cut The Waste. About a year ago, Emily Rae, a CFP with Assante Capital Management Ltd. in Halifax, decided to reduce paper waste in her small office. She called all the fund companies with which she regularly deals and asked them not to send reports, updates or client statements through “snail” mail. “It was so easy,” she says.

All the information Rae might ever need is available online. And, because she prints out reports only when she needs them for client meetings, it’s a more timely strategy, as well.

Where her recycling bins used to overflow with glossy promotional material and wads of envelopes for each client statement, they’re now virtually empty. “The amount of mail coming in,” she says, “has been reduced by 80%.”

Small measures also are important. To reduce the use of disposable coffee cups, for example, Roulston’s office kitchen is stocked with both regular and thermal travel mugs, all featuring the credit union’s logo. This amounts to free advertising and sends a clear message to clients and the community that the local business cares about the environment.



A GREEN TOOL KIT



For advisors interested in adding a little more green to their offices, the David Suzuki Foundation recently launched David Suzuki at Work, an online tool kit designed to help walk people through some of the changes they can make to shrink their office’s environmental footprint.

The 67-page kit focuses on five goals: reducing waste, reducing energy, smart transportation, healthy workplaces (food and toxins) and water conservation. For each goal, the kit provides ideas for all levels of change, from those taking their first green steps all the way up to the well-versed environmentalists.

For instance, to conserve water, advice ranges from banning plastic bottles and running water only when necessary to installing taps with sensors and timers in washrooms. The kit also suggests hooking up building downspouts to rain barrels and experimenting with xeriscaping (landscaping that needs little or no watering, relying mainly on rainfall).

Each section also includes a sample activity designed to motivate employees further and encourage discussion. For example, the section devoted to reducing energy highlights a “Turn It Off to Win” contest, in which “carbon captains” check staff workstations each night. If someone forgets to turn off their computer, their name gets knocked off the list. The last remaining contestant gets a prize.

The kit is designed for anyone at any level in an organization, Mainster says. “You can change your organization. You don’t have to be the CEO or CFO,” she says. “You can plant the seeds.”

For senior executives, the foundation has also published a green business guide that targets change from the top down. Both guides are available at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Planting the seeds of change is important to environmentally-conscious financial advisors such as Betty-Anne Howard, a CFP with Independent Planning Group Inc. in Kingston, Ont. She takes public transit to work, recycles regularly and prides herself on her litterless lunches. But a more important task in her eyes is to spread the word about the importance of environmentally sensible action.

For instance, if Howard holds a client event, she uses caterers that take a green approach, offering local food and fair-trade coffee. And she takes bottled water off the menu when hosting a seminar.

“For me,” she says, “it’s just about taking the steps to make the world a better place.” IE