Once upon a time I had a client from Staten Island. His dream was to own a renewable energy business to save the planet and all life on it. But a business like that proved difficult to win, especially since he wanted it home-based.
I told my client that I’d known of a man who set up a green business. He used to pick up dog poo from his neighbors’ back yards to dump it into the dog owners’ garbage cans. He claimed to have been making more money per hour than a myriad of office environmentalists.
Why was he so well off doing green?
His customers had determined that their time and the hassle of repeatedly having to bend down to pick up their darling pets’ disgusting backyard mess was far more valuable than his. And this made all the difference. This produced the business opportunity that he wanted while improving the environment.
The key to that successful project lay in one neighbor – the dog owner – trading what was of lesser value to him (money) to gain what another neighbor – the pet poop picker – also considered of personal lesser value to himself (time spent stooping) to get what the other was willing to give up. The result was one ended with a local green business and the other with a green and pest-free yard.
What can you eliminate from one neighbor’s environment to reuse in another one’s surroundings to improve the lot for both?
What can you broker between them?
If you improve the quality of life for people, then you are improving the environment in which they exist.
If you wish to be particularly green about it, then concentrate on organic matter rather than, say, digits. But focus on trading what is of lesser value to you for what is of lesser value to another, who finds of greater value to himself that which you disregard for yourself, and you both will gain in the process. Get it?
Take roaches, for instance. You might regard them quite lowly. But farm fish, chicken and pet owners regard them highly as feed for their animals. See a condemned property full of creepy crawlers? That’s a business opportunity right there!
Why?
Because somebody’s trash is always someone else’s treasure.
Even if what most people see is a dump, when your focus instead lies in enabling someone else to gain from what another believes to be useless, then you will have a green business…or any business.
Make a product out of someone else’s scraps. It may start as waste. But if you turn it into something that makes another’s life run better – if it saves someone’s resources, especially time and money – then you have a green business. All it takes is vision and plenty of elbow grease.