Positive Power of Principled Profit
Volume 5, Number 7—March, 2008

Herman Miller: Positive Power Spotlight, March 2003

How many companies did their first environmental impact report in 1953?

That’s when the well-known office furniture company Herman Miller began reporting its environmental progress. The 100-year-old company came to my attention through an article by CEO Brian C. Walker in Harvard Business Review, on Greening the Supply Chain. And this is remarkable in itself; while most companies are just beginning to grapple with sustainable measures within their own confines, Herman Miller has not only made a huge effort to get its vendors –both domestic and international–in line, but is teaching other companies.

Going to the company’s website, I see good links on the home page:
What we believe (with eight subsections, some of which have another layer as well)
The environment (11 subsections, including Green buildings, cradle-to-cradle and LEED certification, and even a recommended reading list!), and diversity, among others.

The environmental section notes,

Our values are the basis for Herman Miller’s corporate community. One of the nine things that matter most to us is called “A Better World.” For us, contributing to a better world takes many forms–environmental advocacy, volunteering time and contributing to nonprofit groups, acting as a good corporate citizen.

It also lists nine separate corporate teams involved in Herman Miller’s environmental responsibility activities.

In his follow-up comments (same URL), Walker points out that he and several competitors have joined forces with the Michigan Department of Corrections to train inmates in a furniture component recycling pilot program, and is looking at technology to better monitor chemical content, and to replace more toxic materials like PVC with more environmentally friendly alternatives.

For more business ethics and sustainability success stories, please see Shels award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

Growing Local Value: How to Build Business Partnerships that Strengthen Your Community, by Laury Hammel and Gun Denhart
Reviewed by Shel Horowitz (Berrett-Koehler, 2007)

Another wonderful title in Berrett-Koehler’s Social Venture Network series, Growing Local Value profiles a number of successful companies who see themselves as partners witht heir communities–and shows how these businesses can market successfully by distinguishing themselves from faceless corporate competition. Examples: An independent bookseller in Utah who says, “the real pleasure in bookselling comes in pairing the right book with the right person”…a San Francisco chain of boutique hotels, restaurants and day spas where each unit provides a completely different experience, and where a “hotel matchmaker” channels guests into the facility that best matches their tastes: concerning itself with “creating wonderful dreams” rather than providing a mere place to sleep…a large bakery that provides jobs to people formerly seen as unemployable (and got the contract to supply Ben & Jerry’s, probably as a direct result of this social commitment), and does so in such a way that the company is protected, and the employees can get away from the poverty, prison, and drug problems of their pasts…a garden supply company that helped revitalize the blighted neighborhood it called home.

All of these, and most of the other numerous examples in the book, were good for the community AND highly profitable.

Different chapters look at

• Putting the customer and community first
• Financing without compromising values
• Making employees into partners
• Partnering with other local businesses, government entities, and nonprofits (separate chapters)
• My favorite chapter, on turning sustainable principles into competitive advantages (which I also talk about in my own award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First)