My team and I are currently working on a project for a small environmental consulting firm. As we are moving closer to our final deliverable date, we are facing quite the challenges in terms of our project guidelines and our relatively inexperience in working in consulting services. Our project is set to provide a communicative message to employees and clients to be efficient in their green practices and more importantly to believe that these changes in environmental thinking are a necessity in business as well as personal practice. We have used a two way approach to provide a solution to our client. One is to interview current employees about their company culture and what they would like to see in their daily work life; the other is to benchmark current green practices in similar and even non-related companies. In process of researching and analyzing these green practices, I have found that most market leaders in different and completely non related industries are usually ahead of the curve in their CSR policies as well as their reduction of carbon footprint. In fact, several high profile consulting firms seem to be hired to address the exact issue of environmental policies within business. It seems that consulting and overall business is changing determined by two main drivers, one being CSR (the other is going “Mobile”). As I have been a rather profit/loss oriented kind of aspiring business professional, I realized throughout this project and the class that if I want to start a career in consulting, I would need to approach business through the sustainability lens (as outlined by Nike). In addition, I believe my emotional investment in such green practices has changed as well, leaving me deeper invested in how I would like launch my career in strategy and operations. Overall I am very pleased with the development of our project and the challenges it has brought to my team and I. I am confident that our passion to provide a valuable solution to our client will drive us to succeed in the end.

—Dan.N.

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