Women Managers Make Greener Business Decisions
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 07.17.08
A new battlefront has opened on the struggle for equal employment opportunities for women:
Female decision makers are more environmentally-conscious than males.This is the conclusion of the first of an annual series of surveys to benchmark green business technology purchasing trends in the U.S., conducted by Hansa-GCR under the sponsorship of several companies, including Xerox. The survey also concludes:
Green has arrived as a business issue.
"Green" is good for business and image
The survey found that 64% of respondents agree with the statement that being perceived as green helps their brand. Only 9% disagreed (we'd like to meet those managers!) While that may come as no surprise, the reassuring finding in this study is that decision makers valued real actions over mere commitment to action. It is no longer sufficient to have a "commitment to product stewardship". Responsible managers put emphasis on
- supporting conservation and recycling,
- offering environmentally conscious products, and
- carbon footprint reduction.
No recognized industry leaders among tech companies
"None" and "other" win the awards for the technology companies that first come to mind as green leaders. In a similar vein, no green organization (such as greenpeace, wwf, nature conservancy, leed, etc) scored as a real leader in "relevance and leadership on green or environmental issues in technology".
Benchmarking green business technology purchasing trends
The survey polled 600 respondents, screened to ensure influence in supply chain decisions. Half of the respondents represent small to midsized companies (100 - 999 employees) and the other half work for enterprise-scale companies (>1000 employees).
More on Green Business
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GCR Insight Free Summary
Hansa GCR Green TechPulse '08
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Are Women Greener Than Men?
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Women greener than men? How is antagonizing anyone with results from ridiculous biased studies going to help the green movement? If I were a woman I would feel the same way.
I absolutely agree that female managers tend to be more environmentally conscious. I work for a company called Bizcard - www.bizcard.com - who's co-owner and president is a woman.
She and a few other (mostly female) employees and managers took a printing company for small businesses and turned it into a virtual model for green printing.
I would question whether this initiative ever would have come to the forefront if not for our president, who happens to be female.
I would love to see in the future more information about this. Green has become a standard for many companies and individuals. I wonder why female corporate managers tend to focus on green more than men.
Come on guys, were falling behind!
David, are you a contradiction? You claim women are greener, yet aren't you green? Silly generalizations serve no constructive purpose. They only serve to perpetuate injustices such as bigotry.
Hopefully, this finding will raise attention towards the need for better recruitment and retention of women in corporations. Although women are approximately half of the labor force today, they hold only 13.6% of board seats nationally. What would the state of corporate America look like if our workplaces were gender equitable?
Is it boys versus girls time now?
do stop squawking 'greenguy', you sound like an MRA.
women (on average; as the article and you are using gross generalisations i will too) are trained from an early age in caring, co-operation and holistic thinking to a much greater degree than men. they also (gen.) make a greater physical and emotional investment in the next generation so may be thinking on rather longer timescales than an equivalent male.
greenguy, you're silly. Someone saying, "A higher percentage of this group is doing something" isn't a generalization, it's a statement based on a study. How would this lead to bigotry? The MAXIMUM difference is only around 20% in any case.
Interesting study. Hopefully this will help all of us make greener decision, regardless of gender.
This is to offset womens' flushing of toilets a dozen times per day, versus mens' once or twice per day.
Shall I throw fashion, diamonds, and Evian into the list of the wonderful environmental decisions of women?