PAKPOUR CONSULTING GROUP FEATURED FOR GOING GREEN
2008-06-08

Pakpour Consulting Group is featured in San Francisco Chronicle's article, It's becoming much easier to go green by Ilana DeBare.

Joubin Pakpour, founder of Pakpour Consulting Group in Pleasanton, is an avid skier who became worried several years ago that global warming would damage the slopes and watershed of his beloved Sierra.

So he set about calculating the carbon footprint of his six-person company - even to the point of weighing how much garbage was generated each day. Pakpour bought flatware for the office to cut the use of disposable plastic forks and spoons. He offered commuter checks to subsidize employees' use of mass transit, and encouraged his staff to turn the lights off and run the dishwasher only when full. He also started routinely printing documents on both sides of the paper, which helped lower paper use from 534 pounds in 2005 to 465 pounds in 2006.

He is also trying to spread the word among other businesses with which he works.

"We use a lot of subcontractors and we've pushed this on them slowly, asking them to present us with a recycling plan for their office," he said...

Some business owners like Pakpour would like to see different tiers of green certification, to recognize firms that take a more ambitious approach.