It’s become trendy to say
you’re going green, but
Chuck Fowler’s efforts to promote sustainability at
Fairmount Minerals is hardly
the work of a leader pursuing
the latest fad just to make his
business look good.
Instead, it’s part of a plan to
make the 450-employee sand
producer a more well-rounded
company that is reducing costs
while also becoming more
environmentally conscious.
“We’ve had any number of
ideas that have come out of
our groups and our teams that
have resulted in new products,
reduced costs and improved
profitability,” says Fowler, the
company’s president and CEO.
“If you turn a lot more people
loose on it, you get a lot more
opportunities. Any number of
those have paid for whatever
cost we got involved with.”
Fowler and his employees set
59 “bold goals” for 2007 and
achieved or made progress
toward achieving just about
every one of them, including
increasing participation in the
company wellness program by
87 percent and providing at
least eight hours of safety training to 86 percent of employees.
Employees also developed
reusable containers that eliminated the need for about
15,700 pallets and 4,000 units
of packaging annually.
“It’s a way many managers
and companies have operated
over the years for all their lives,”
Fowler says of the latest push
for sustainability in business.
“It’s just putting a definition to it
and a positive emphasis.”
One of the biggest mistakes
you can make in trying to promote sustainability is to get
caught up in trying to define it.
“You have to brand it and
make it simple and easy for
everybody,” Fowler says. “‘We,
the Fairmount Minerals family,
are united in our commitment
to exceed all expectations
while fulfilling our economic,
social and environmental
responsibilities.’ That’s a pretty
good mouthful to remember.
So we shortened that to, ‘Do
good, do well.’ When we say
that in our organization, people know what it means.”
Branding is crucial to getting
everyone on board with steps
that promote sustainability and,
in the process, benefit the bottom line. By getting employees
together in a group setting, you
can brainstorm ideas on how to
get others involved.
“It was a cross section from
all over the company,” Fowler says. “We invited about 35 to 40
people to come together to be
our steering committee to start
the buy-in process. Then we
invited everybody to a summit
to introduce sustainability.”
Your employees need to see
that you are sincere about
your plan to increase sustainability at the company and
that it’s not just about going
green; it’s also about finding
better and more efficient ways
to do their jobs.
When you can find ways to
integrate the effort in a positive way outside of the work-place, you stand a good
chance of gaining employee
support. And getting your
company involved in volunteering initiatives and projects
that benefit the community
can do just that.
“What that does is gets the
feeling and understanding that
it’s OK,” Fowler says. “It shows
them what they do, how they
can do it, where they might do it
and where they have a passion.
Employees carry that onto volunteering on their own.”
By getting employees in the
mindset of helping out in the
community and being environmentally conscious, you also get
them thinking about ways to
save money in the workplace.
“Being more efficient as far as
electricity is concerned,” Fowler
says. “Being more efficient as
far as energy use is concerned
and waste. These aren’t new
things. It’s just a better way of
trying to accomplish them.
“Ultimately, our definition of
success is when everybody
within our organization and
our stakeholders think about
sustainability and people, planet and prosperity in every decision that they make.”
Setting goals
Chuck Fowler says it’s never a
good idea to underestimate the
capacity of your employees to
meet goals.
“Most business consultants
over the years would recommend that a business set three
to five goals a year because they
can’t do any more than that,”
says Fowler, president and CEO
of Fairmount Minerals. “Bull
pucky. We set 59 goals last year,
and this year, we had 57 goals.
The way we’re able to do that is
we have 450 people working on
them, not just four or five.”
Fowler says your goals for
your company should be ambitious, but they have to be realistic, as well.
“You need to be honest with
yourself and with your stake-holders,” Fowler says.
While you are trying to reach
for the stars with your goals,
you usually don’t have to reach
nearly as far to get employees to
achieve them. Bonuses are
good, but the small things can
be just as effective.
“We give a $2,000 bonus for
anybody that buys a hybrid or
green-rated car,” Fowler says.
“That sounds pretty good. But
getting recycling bins in everybody’s office and getting people
in the plant to take control of
that or ownership of that has
probably had more impact than
giving $2,000 bonuses.”
HOW TO REACH: Fairmount Minerals, (800) 237-4986 or www.fairmountminerals.com
