Burt's Business Blog

With an upsurge of environmentally conscious businesses, your business is likely to lag behind if you do not start implementing green strategies in your operations. Green strategies implementation can, however, get very complicated if you do not know what you are doing.  Environmental consultants come in handy at this point because they can tell you what to do and what not to do concerning effecting environmentally friendly plans. However, you must be very careful when choosing a consultant because merely picking up your phone and calling the first consulting firm you find in the yellow pages will not work. This article highlights tips you can use when hiring an environmental consultant.

Understand Your Green Sustainability Needs

Before hiring an environmental consultant, you must first understand your business needs. You might want to get involved in planting trees on a parcel of land within the community, or you may want to start a recycling program. Whichever the case might be, it is critical to understand what green project you want your business to get involved in as part of its environmental sustainability efforts. Armed with this information, it becomes a bit easy looking for the right service provider that matches your ecological conservation needs. However, if you call a consultant before you decide on the green project you want to undertake, then you will be wasting money in the form of consultancy fees.  

Understand Services that Consultants Offer

Environmental consultants create a niche for themselves to remain relevant and competitive in their industry. For this reason, you will find different consultants providing different services within the same sector. However, some consultants specialize in one segment and offer advisory services in two or three other segments on pro bono basis.  For instance, you will find recycling consultants who also provide extra services like permit application at no additional cost. Therefore, instead of choosing a consultant who offers recycling services only, you should go for one who provides both, but at a fixed, discounted fee. As a result, your business will save both time and money.

Review Consultants' Proposals

As you near the end of your search, you should have at least three environmental consultants to choose from. Provide them with a brief of your proposed green project as well as your business capabilities. Notably, one consultant might tell you that they can offer services, but at a premium fee. Another might point out that they would require an extra week to complete the said project. Most importantly, only choose a consultant whose proposal matches your brief regarding time and budget provisions.