How Ken Mehlman of Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. Works in Co-Ordination with the Environmental Defense Fund
Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) was set up by Henry Kravis and his business partner George Roberts in the 70’s with the support of the First Chicago Corporation. But recently they have assembled an unusual project that focuses not alone on how much profit they can net, but also on how environmentally aware each of the enterprises in their portfolio are.
KKR’s Henry Kravis and the the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) got together in 2008, with the mission of making environmentally aware business processes a mainstream principle. Issues like deforestation and colossal consumption of water resources feature high on their agenda.
Eco-efficiency (a term first pitched by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development WBCSD) is the procedure deployed to achieve these aims, utilizing policies like using clean energy, recycling programs and reducing the intensity of materials. Even though the project was an enormous success, staff simply didn’t understand how significant the effects actually were until Ken Mehlman, the executive responsible for the program, reviewed the first year’s figures.
Ken Mehlman observed that practicing eco-efficiency was not solely lessening environmental impact, but in addition it was helping to save firms a great deal of money, and so the program turned into virtually an instant success. Currently, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and Ken Mehlman have well-nigh all of their companies involved in eco-efficiency. And, when you consider that the group has a 2009 portfolio estimated at $86,000,000,000, you can be certain this wasn’t a simple see what an enormous achievement this is.
Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and the EDF with the assistance of Ken Mehlman have also expanded the initial project. For example, KKR joined the EDF’s Climate Corps Program which teaches MBA interns how to design and initiate cost effective, green principles.
More recently, Ken Mehlman has been collaborating closely with KKR to create metrics which business organizations can use to evaluate resources. This type of info is critical as companies may without much effort measure their everyday processes and find out how any issues may be resolved while simultaneously permitting them to see how far they have progressed.
Today’s business community has been altered forever by the ecologically focused work of Henry Kravis, the KKC, and the Environmental Defense Fund. These innovations have set a benchmark for firms in every sector and illustrated that running a profitable business need not entail the hefty price of negatively impacting our planet.
