Unique Selling Point? Green English Courses
I am not an environmentalist, but I live on this Earth and hope to never see it self-destruct. I read this article from Fast Company today: Resources: The Revolution Begins and just started thinking, I wonder what kind of impact the ESL industry has on the environment?
I started thinking about:
1. All the trees we destroy for the paper we use in our lovely course-books and their ever so important companion workbooks and teacher’s editions.
2. All the trees we destroy for TOEIC and TOEFL exams (the first two I could think of.) - and let’s not forget all the books we publish to hack - umm, prepare for these tests.
3. All the regular, paper based reports we dish out: student attendance, progress reports, tests etc.
4. All our publicity: brochures, posters, business cards etc.
5. I use, I admit, a fair amount of paper too. Most of my classes have gone bookless, but I still print lots of articles etc, from the net. While not as destructive as a course-book, I think I am still needlessly consuming.
So yeah, I’d say our industry has a pretty big contribution to environmental problems around the globe.
I read the Fast Company article and I thought…now this is interesting. It’s a bit scary. But I really enjoyed the FC spin. To begin solving the problem, we shouldn’t go “doomsday.” We should look for innovative ways to go green, and develop sustainable businesses in doing so.
“…a group of big thinkers has emerged in the past decade to put a newtwist on the green dream–people like William McDonough, MichaelBraungart, Amory Lovins, Janine Benyus, and Paul Hawken. Rather thantaking ecological principles primarily as moral prohibitions, they suggest, why not see them as design challenges?” (Resources: The Revolution Begins. Giller, Roberts.)
The ESL design challenge. How about we adopt more technology friendly learning environments? Instead of course-books, use the net. Students could use bloglines and their own personal blog as their info catcher and notetaking tool. (No notebooks required.)
Reading, writing, and listening activities could also all be 100% digitally based by using blogs, online articles, and podcasts.
Instead of cds, why not help your students get ipods or inexpensive mp3 players as a part of your service. (I’m already planning how to do this when I get my company rolling.)
Companies could go for paperless reporting solutions with their clients, which would cut down paper waste, increase reporting speed and efficiency, and just make the whole process smoother. Sure there would be hurdles to jump, and adoption would likely be difficult at first, but going 100% green is very doable. I know the folks at www.english360.com are working on some pretty exciting stuff that could maybe open the road to this sort of thing at some point.
Doable aside, now that I’m in the middle of trying to get my own company off the ground, I am seeing this as a very possible USP. (Unique Selling Point.) I have never seen a Green English course. I have never seen an environmentally friendly language school either. But around here, in some places, there is a rising interest in going green. What if you could build a high quality, 100% green language development solution? What if, and more importantly, why not? There’s nothing stopping us but our own laziness and addiction to doing things the way they’ve always been done.
The Green language learning solution. Crazy ideas, or a possible niche? What do you think?
We’re on the way to greener learning learning environments. (Actually, I think classrooms have been much greener before it became so easy to make photocopies and printing was so inexpensive.) When my students started using laptops, I noticed that one thing alone cut the paper use in my classroom. I’m not sure how much, but I’m thinking definately more than 50%. It feels good to not waste so much–and it didn’t take as much prep time. I think your green course has much merit.
And if could pat the average public school teacher on the back…we are notorious recyclers and hoarders of resources. The teacher across the hallway from me retired last year, but she still did not throw out her resources–and some of it is 20+ years old. Old, but not useless. Many of us took things, and I have 2 boxes of resources in my classroom that I’ll pass on to any of the new teacher who might need a few things. Recycle, resuse…it helps.
Comment by Kristine — August 19, 2006 @ 8:59 am
Aaron, British companies are getting into the act. Check out this BBC article: 100 days carbon cleanup
Comment by Marco Polo — September 30, 2006 @ 7:36 pm
I completely agree with you. Instead of ruining the environment and spending thousands of dollars on paper and books and other environmental objects, we should spend all of that money on computers for students, since they will need to have one anyway these days.
Comment by Melissa Israelson — February 12, 2007 @ 11:17 pm
I completely agree with you. We need to start spending thousands of dollars on laptops for students instead of thousands of dollars on textbooks. I swear, the entire human race will be extinct before anyone in authority has the chance to realize can’t live without trees. For christs sake, people are so wasteful!
Comment by Melissa Israelson — February 12, 2007 @ 11:24 pm
In reading your blog I can say that I definitely understand where you are coming from. Many of us do not realize the effect we are having on our environment because it isn’t having a large negative impact on us RIGHT NOW. Eventually though, it will. It is important for us to recognize this and start taking actions to help for the future now. My University uses a technology called LiveText. It is an online resource that can be used for writing assignments, having assignments graded, etc. It eliminates the extreme amounts of paper we use regularly for these purposes. I support a system such as this, however I do have one concern. It may be a bit paranoid to say, but the thought of eventually having teaching be done completely via the web seems possible. This would be a huge drawback in my opinion. One of the best thing about teaching is being able to interact with your students and truly recognize who they are, and how you can help them learn best. Saving the environment is important, I just hope teaching in the classroom doesn’t get toatlly lost in the mix of online learning!
Comment by Brennan — February 14, 2007 @ 11:51 pm