Small businesses that use Intuit's QuickBooks can find out how green their companies are, and learn how to be greener.
Millions of small and midsize businesses rely on QuickBooks accounting software, and Intuit has recently launched a free service that use QuickBooks data to calculate the business' carbon footprint and offer suggestions on how to shrink it.
Frankly, I think it's kind of ingenious. Since many companies already use QuickBooks to run all aspects of their business, the key data is already in the system. That way, Green Snapshot can generate the carbon use estimates without the business having to fill out a bunch of forms or spreadsheets.
According to Intuit, Green Snapshot uses technology from Cooler -- a "for-profit social venture" -- to use Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Analysis (EIO-LCA) to "analyze and categorize business expenses according to the vendor and the expense category. Each business expense is assigned to one of almost 1,000 different emissions categories."
According to at Joel Makower at GreenBiz.com, "The system typically matches about 8 of 10 transactions. The report you get shows which transactions weren't included in the carbon footprint calculation."
In addition to providing suggestions on how to be greener, the system can also tell you how green your company already is. It automatically compares your company's footprint to other companies in your industry, based on the carbon impact of every dollar you spend. There's even a back-end way for SMBs to contribute to the suggestions. "Intuit Green Snapshot users who sell green products or services can submit their product or service to be included in the application, so that other users can reduce their footprint by buying from other Intuit small businesses using Intuit Green Snapshot."
Most business owners are so busy, that they don't have time for extensive green research, even if they believe in the concept. I think it's going to take this kind of dead-simple stuff to jumpstart green practices in smaller companies.
Not sure it makes sense to switch over to QuickBooks just for this, but if you're already a QuickBooks user, why not give it a try?
Just be aware that Rupesh Shah, Director, Corporate Sustainability at Intuit, told GreenBiz.com that "About half of the actions are behavioral -- clean your HVAC, drive smarter -- and about half involve buying something -- an Energy Star computer, or some other greener product." And although Green Snapshot is free, the companies acknowledge that "Intuit and Cooler generate revenue through affiliate fees" when you buy something they recommend. Still, Shah also told GreenBiz.com that, "We haven't made a penny yet, and I don't think that we're going to make any meaningful money any time soon."
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