Does looking at cool stuff improve your skills?  When you read inspiring eco tweets or blogs, does it prompt you to eco action?   According to How to Turn Inspiration into a Skill, “looking at cool stuff isn’t enough to increase your skill. It’s easy to look at some stuff and say 'oh that’s inspiring, that gives me ideas' without moving an inch."

 

A world of transformational opportunity is among us. The gap between eco awareness and eco action may represent the single largest opportunity for global sustainability progress.  And, according to the post, the transformation from inspiration to action is "mostly by copying heroes."  The author equates it to playing a guitar, “When you start playing guitar all you want to do is play the first verse of your favorite song. Big success! You don’t need to write the next great guitar symphony or a hit single. Merely executing the copy was a thrill."  

 

With so many small businesses still recovering from recent economic hurdles, one might wonder why sustainability is a fit for small business. Small businesses are often, by design, perfectly suited for sustainability implementation.  They are more agile and able to quickly respond to changing market conditions, have lower risk than larger organizations, and reduced decision chain - all enabling them to integrate sustainability concepts into their businesses quickly and effectively. And, they don't have the world looking upon them to see if they "do" sustainability perfectly like the big boys do.

 

Now is the time to capitalize on the window of opportunity to reduce costs, improves sales, and stay ahead of the curve.  Why not copy the hero's leading the business sustainability efforts.  Companies like  Coca-Cola , Dell, and UPS are demonstrating reductions in water, energy, carbon and expanding sustainability initiatives to the supply chain.  And you can too.

 

Inspired yet?  Do you want to take action? Copy the business sustainability strategies of the larger organizations: 

 

Sustainable business strategies used by larger organizations are examples of best practices that can be utilized in small business to generate cost savings, reduced environmental impacts, and brand differentiation by going green.  Transform your inspiration to take eco action today!

 

Julie Urlaub is the founder and managing partner of Taiga Company, a Houston based sustainability consulting firm.   Read more blog post connect on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.