The Story of Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and the Environmental Defense Fund
Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) was founded in the mid-seventies and orginally their focus was in highly leveraged transactions. Lately, however, aiming to make their portfolio companies and acquisitions greener, they have founded an unusual green enterprise which has transformed the way businesses and environmental groups work.
KKR’s Henry Kravis and the New York based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) got together in 2008, hoping to make environmentally friendly business processes an accepted idea. The coalition intends to oppose a few crucial green matters, that include toxic chemical use, greenhouse gas emissions, extravagant water consumption, and resource depletion.
Eco-efficiency (the phrase was first advocated by the WBCSD) is the method employed to achieve these targets, through applying policies such as optimizing data centers for efficiency, reducing the dispersion of toxic chemicals and maximum use of renewable resources. Efficient though it was the companies involved did not understand the full program’s advantages until Ken Mehlman, the executive responsible for the program, studied the project subsequent to its first year in operation.
Ken saw that applying eco-efficiency wasn’t merely reducing their environmental impact, but additionally it was saving firms a great deal of money, making the program virtually an instant hit. Nearly all of the commercial organizations owned by KKR and Ken Mehlman now actively participate in the Green Portfolio Project. Seeing that this group of business organizations is worth almost 100.000,000,000 USD, you may be sure that this wasn’t an easy achievement. The initial program is expanding to include new enterprises. The Climate Corps Program set up by the Environmental Defense Fund is a great illustration of this, it campaigns for planet friendly business principles to interns studying for an MBA. Lately, Ken Mehlman has been in close collaboration with Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co to produce a variety of analytic tools and other related products that companies can use to quantify resources. With this information available, any business can evaluate their day to day procedures and find out precisely how they can solve any problems while simultaneously seeing their progress.
Henry Kravis, the KKC, and the Environmental Defense Fund have encouraged all sorts of businesses to go green. Their developments have simplified the process for organizations in every industry and proved that making profits need not entail the hefty price of damaging the environment.
