Going green

Posted by BJ & Jon
The theme of this year’s APMP conference – taking place in Florida during the coming week – is “Going green”. In Strategic Proposals (the business of which BJ and I are the principal directors), we decided to take on the APMP challenge and review our own approach to sustainability. As a result, we’ve just published our first corporate environment policy – something we believe to be a first in the proposal training / consultancy market.

We’ve reproduced the policy below, for two reasons – first, because we’d welcome any feedback or views as we strive lead our own operations in a more environmentally-friendly manner, and second to challenge readers here to produce their own policies. Here’s what we’ve committed to doing – and do let us know your plans:

Strategic Proposals Environmental Policy

Strategic Proposals seeks to achieve excellence in every aspect of our business and to champion best practice within the proposal profession.

As such, we are committed to minimising the environmental impact of our operations and to encouraging other proposal teams to do likewise.

To achieve this, we have adopted the following ten step policy across each of our business units worldwide. We will:

1. 
   
   1. 1. Seek to off-set the carbon emissions associated with our business travel, embedding this within our standard terms of engagement.
   2. 2. Minimise international travel as far as possible whilst meeting our client’s business needs, by working with and promoting local partner companies within the Strategic Proposals International Network.
   3. 3. Use public transport rather than private vehicles wherever possible.
   4. 4. Use materials from sustainable sources (e.g. FSC-compliant) for all of our printed documentation and training course materials.
   5. 5. Reduce paper usage, by adopting and advocating duplex (double-sided) printing for all proposal-related activity and recycling all redundant paper from bidding and training programmes.
   6. 6. Promote an environmentally responsible approach to print and production within the training and advice that we provide to clients, and in our written articles and conference presentations.
   7. 7. Incorporate a specific section on environmental best practice within the Strategic Proposals Benchmarking Model, by the end of 2010.
   8. 8. Sponsor an annual award, to be offered to the proposal centre worldwide that, in our opinion, has done the most to reflect environmental best practice.
   9. 9. Communicate the importance of environmental issues to our staff, associates and business partners on a regular basis, encouraging feedback.
   10. 10. Annually review our environmental policies and performance, and allocate resources for their effective direction and implementation.

We welcome – and will actively seek – constructive feedback on our policy from our clients and others in the proposal profession.
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Strategic Proposals, May 2010.