Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) was established in the seventies and in the beginning the firm’s main business was in highly leveraged transactions. Pushing further, aiming to make the companies in their portfolio more environmentally aware, KKR have set up a unique green project which has dramatically changed the method by which businesses and environmental groups function.

When Henry Kravis from KKR and the New York based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) merged in 2008 green matters went mainstream. Issues like greenhouse gas emissions and immoderate water consumption are an all-important part of their corporate mission. Eco-efficiency (the phrase was originally propagated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development) is the method employed to achieve these objectives, applying policies like recycling programs, increasing the durability of products and using clean energy. Irrespective of the fact that the program was a huge success, no-one recognized how far reaching the consequences truly were until Ken Mehlman, the person responsible for the project, looked at the first year’s figures. Ken saw that the program was not merely helping to maintain the environment, but additionally it was saving a wide range of businesses a significant amount of money. These days, KKR and Ken Mehlman have almost all of their firms involved in the project. Nevertheless, with a 2009 portfolio worth eighty-six billion dollars, you may be certain that this was no easy see what an enormous feat this is. Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co with the Environmental Defense Fund in association with Ken Mehlman are extending the original Green Portfolio project. For example, KKR got together with the EDF’s Climate Corps Program a venture which instructs MBA students how to encourage financially sound, planet friendly techniques. KKR and Ken Mehlman have been developing analytic tools which oversee resources. This type of info is crucial as businesses can assess each of their daily activities and identify how any problems can be solved while simultaneously permitting staff to determine their ecological impact. The business community has been altered forever by the efforts of these individuals. These unique concepts have made decreasing their ecological impact simpler for companies in every sector and established that running a profitable business need not entail the hefty price of negatively impacting our planet.