When Henry Kravis and his business partner George Roberts launched Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) in the mid-seventies with some assistance from the First Chicago Corporation, their specialty was in “bootstrap” buyouts. Lately, however, aiming to make their acquisitions greener, they have rolled out a unique green project which has dramatically changed the way business concerns and environmental agencies function.
Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co’s Henry Kravis and the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) joined forces a year ago, hoping to make environmentally sound business processes a commonplace idea. Their mission is to offer encouragement to their affiliated firms in avoiding practices which may threaten the environment such as water pollution not to forget enormous consumption of water resources.
In order to accomplish these goals, they use a procedure known as eco-efficiency; this involves practicable techniques such as increasing the durability of products, reducing the waste of resources, and waste reduction. Simple and effective, but the firms involved did not even realize the entirety of the advantages of the project until Ken Mehlman, the head of the project and global public affairs, looked over the figures from the project after its first year in operation.
Ken Mehlman saw that practicing eco-efficiency was not solely preserving the local environment, but additionally it was helping to save companies a large amount of money, and so the project became almost an instant success. Virtually all of the business concerns affiliated to Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and Ken Mehlman now are involved in eco-efficiency. If you consider that this portfolio of companies is valued at 86 billion dollars, you can see what a challenge this really is. The initial project now includes new opportunities. For example, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co got together with the Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Corps Program an organization that instructs interns taking an MBA how to introduce cost effective, earth friendly techniques.
More recently, Ken Mehlman has been in close collaboration with Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co to develop a package of metrics and analytic tools which all sorts of companies can employ to measure and oversee resources. With this information available, companies can analyze their day to day activities and identify precisely how they can solve any problems while simultaneously tracking their progress.
Henry Kravis, the KKC, and the Environmental Defense Fund have encouraged all sorts of businesses to become more environmentally friendly. In summary, the work of these organizations has made green business practice not only viable, but commercially desirable, and their radical ideas are setting a new standard in today’s community.
