When Henry Kravis and George Roberts set up Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) in the mid 70’s with some support from the First Chicago Corporation, the firm’s main business was in highly leveraged transactions. However, hoping to make their portfolio of companies greener, KKR have rolled out an extraordinary venture that has transformed the way businesses and environmental groups work forever.

When Henry Kravis from KKR and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) merged a year ago environmental matters all of a sudden turned into a mainstream idea. They aims to campaign against important green issues, such as toxic chemical use, toxic emissions, monumental consumption of water resources, and water pollution.

In order to implement this, they use a method termed eco-efficiency; this calls for practicable techniques like reducing the intensity of materials, optimizing data centers for efficiency, and recycling programs. Even though the project was an enormous success, people simply didn’t realize how significant the consequences really were until Ken Mehlman, the person responsible for the program, finished the review of the first year. Much to everybody’s surprise, Ken saw that this program not only raised environmental awareness, but was increasing the profitability of all their business concerns as well. To date, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and Ken Mehlman have managed to get almost every last company in their portfolio engaged in eco-efficiency principles. When you look at the fact that the portfolio has a value of almost one hundred billion dollars, you can see what a feat this really was.

The Green Portfolio project has evolved far beyond its original purpose and at present includes new initiatives. The Climate Corps Program established by the EDF is a great illustration of this, it advances eco-efficient business techniques to MBA interns. KKR and Ken Mehlman have been developing analytic tools which quantify and manipulate resources. This type of data is critical as companies may without very much effort evaluate their everyday activities and find out how any problems can be solved while simultaneously seeing their progress.

Henry Kravis, the KKR, and the Environmental Defense Fund truly are groundbreakers when it comes to raising awareness of ecologically friendly business techniques. In summary, these systems have made environmentally friendly business techniques not only viable, but commercially desirable, and their radical ideas are setting a new standard in today’s community.