Seeing The Green Light

This month in Pest Management Professional Magazine, you can find my latest contribution, entitled The Green Light. The debate between Right vs. Left, traditional pest controllers vs. environmentalists, global warming deniers vs. global warming watchdogs goes on and on. So in this article, I decided to step back for a minute and consider who are the people who can best bridge the gap of understanding, what professional group can objectively speak to both audiences. The answer: entomologists.

NPMA and NRDC – Marriage of Pest Control and Environmental Groups – Reviewed

Last year the National Pest Management Association created in industry defined green standards certification called QualityPro Green. This past spring of 2009, the NRDC (National Resource Defense Council) approached NPMA ( National Pest Management Association) with a request to conditionally join in the effort to create a better national green program. NPMA wisely found common ground with NRDC, listening and absorbing several of their concerns and designing a better green program under a newly marketed label – GreenPro. GreenPro will now have environmental advocates from outside the pest control industry sitting on its’ board of directors.

Will NRDC find that they have a true partner in NPMA? It’s an open question. Time will tell. By not requiring a front-end audit and an audit of a larger segment of multi-branch companies, they are taking a substantial risk with their own membership and with the potential for the process to be easily subverted. It will be incombant on NPMA and individual GreenPro certified companies to prove they are worthy of the trust extended by NRDC.

Please take the opportunity to review and discuss “A Suprise Marriage” published by Pest Management Professional Magazine in its’ September 2009 issue. In this article I review my own perspective and experience as an active pest control operator.

Feel free to post your replies. All comments are welcome.

Bad Economy Doesn’t Stop HeartsPM

The latest news is in: Hearts Pest Management will be opening doors to business in Los Angeles and San Francisco!

Hearts Pest Management’s “Focus on Organics” themed program “Green Thumb” with EcoWise Certification, is appealing to homeowners across the state. Hearts knows that this program will resonate well in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Hearts Pest Management plans to have a full-time bed bug crew ready to enter the San Francisco market very soon. The bed bug problem is not getting any better. We only wish we were in Vancouver in time to treat bed bugs for the Olympics. But from a business perspective, I am sure some of those Olympics visitors will be getting a taste of the lower 48 in San Francisco. Bed bugs are sure to be in the luggage!

Go to Jail, Do Not Collect $200

Pest control is like a fun game of Monopoly. To win, I formed alliances to gain strategic leverage. We rarely finished the Monopoly game, but we had lots of fun and profit working together. Green pest control is analogous. It’s all about alliances: with employees, customers and environmental groups. The winners are always good partners and partners are always good winners.

In bygone years a macho image of pest control worked. It was all about fast kill. Without the EPA, liability was not a critical factor. Customers reinforced this attitude: “Just get rid of them. I don’t care how!” Pest control operators became enthralled with the “License to Kill,” even using it as a brand name.

If this is you, “Go to Jail, Do Not Collect $200.” You lack the credibility to succeed in the green marketplace. Today, pest control is about life, not death! The slogan, “Flower Power Pest Control” can succeed where “Fast Path to Sure Kill” flops.

If you want to win the game of Monopoly, you must consider your approach carefully. You can’t willy-nilly buy a property here and another there. As in Monopoly, you can’t simply buy a green label product, spray around, hope for a kill and sell it as green. Customers will detect your lack of sincerity, education and efficacy.

Commit as an organization, to completing quality IPM and green certification. Re-imagine your business with a total green vision. Find quality marketing talent to “re-brand” your company for the green revolution. Solicit the ideas of your employees, prospective customers, suppliers and environmental agencies, toward your goal of creating a successful green program. You may find green certified pest control professionals are happy to assist you. They know that in helping each other, we all win, without the need for a Monopoly.

NPMA QualityPro Green – EcoWise Certified – Green Shield Certified

There is a new flag waver in the IPM world: NPMA QualityPro Green.  This program has the opportunity to extend the reach of the green movement into a place of respectability in the industry.  It could also end up being a whitewash of poor practices.  Companies are now acquiring the NPMA QP Green certification at a very quick pace, but there are questions about the quality of QualityPro Green due to the ease in acquiring the certification and the organizations (both NPMA and PCOC) that jointly administer and own the certification .  There is no outside audit done of certification holders.  It is rather an after-thought.  In the most recent issue of PCOC magazine it is stated that there will be a need for a outside auditor.  If so, why was the certification put in place without that process established.  The article goes on to imply that by acquiring the right alliances and associations, that perhaps a third-party auditor won’t be necessary.  My experience is that auditing pest control companies is the antithesis of want pest control companies are looking for.  Pest control companies are going for this certification precisely because they don’t want outside auditors involved in their business and because they don’t want to be judged by environmentalists. 

Two other certification programs have existed for a few years and have developed meaningful programs that teach technique, help raise awareness and provide significant audit mechanisms such that consumers can take comfort in the services provided by EcoWise Certified and Green Shield Certified professionals.  This is not to say the QP Green can’t rise to the challenge, but they are not there yet and have not proven the desire to go in that direction.

My own feeling is that you need to pay to play.  If you want of be recognized as having green processes, procedures and trained IPM professionals both in technique and attitude, you should be willing to open house to environmentalists gladly and be transparent about it.