Social Responsibility Can Save Money

Our firm's Social Responsibility Committee has been working hard and we have proven a standard Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) maxim that being a socially responsible business can save money. Our SR Committee identified our weekly deliveries of water in large plastic bottles for our water coolers as an area in which we could improve our level of CSR.  For businesses that have reliable access to satisfactory munipal water, deliveries of water to the office involve additional truck traffic to our downtown location, truck exhaust  emmisions, use of truck fuel, plastic containers that must be replaced periodically, water and chemicals to sanitize recycled plastic containers for re-use, and so forth.   We proposed converting to a filter system to replace our water coolers with plumbed-in filter spigots dispensing cold and hot filtered water directly from our city water.   The filter spigots are free standing units that look similar to water coolers but without the plastic containers of water, and they are connected to our water pipes.  The economics are a "no brainer" for our particular situation.  We converted to the filter system in December 2009 and even accounting for the costs of purchase, installation and plumbing, our firm is saving about $1,600 - $3,000 per year depending on our consumption.  Factoring out the cost of conversion, we are saving $2,500 - $3,000 per year on water purchases.  Our SR Committee is very happy to find ways to save money and incorporate new CSR practices into our business.  The firm also has adopted our SR Committee's recommendations for transportation initiatives to support our employees who utilize public transportation for commuting and reduce the number of cars our employees bring downtown each day.  This is a fun process and the firm's employees on the SR Committee really enjoy working on these issues.  Our starting point was completing the VBSR Journey, a self-assessment tool for businesses to evaluate their level of CSR, identify areas for improvement, and track progress.  Check it out at the web site of VBSR (Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility), www.vbsr.org.