Financial Responsibility

We implement financial initiatives that are aimed at conserving our financial resources and growing our business responsibly (in a manner that will enable us to sustain our business, our employees, and the stakeholders even if there is a downturn or some other disaster.)   Nurseries are typically seasonal and we’re no exception.  But so far we’ve managed to structure our activities and our finances so that we can keep our employees busy throughout the year.  How?

In the winter, we propagate new plants from seed and focus on maintenance and capacity building projects.  In the spring & fall, we are going ‘great guns’ delivering, and in the summer we focus on plant care as well as propagation.

We work hard to save money to maintain our cash balances to maintain payroll and expense costs.  Of course it’s a bit easier because we  intentionally run lean.

Financial Management

We manage money on a cash basis.  This means we do not purchase anything unless we have sufficient cash on hand to pay for it.  While we may use debt strategically, we base all decisions for purchasing, capital investment, and hiring on our cash position, not on our credit:

• When we purchased a major piece of equipment (skid steer), it was offered with a zero-percent loan for one year.  In this case, it was financially advantageous to use the loan even though we keep sufficient cash to pay for equipment.

This allows us to make sound business decisions without worrying about the risk of debt service, losing production capability during a downturn, etc.

Financial Performance

We measure performance in meaningful business and sustainability terms.  For example:

• We track our overall energy consumption.  Because a great deal of energy goes into our product, it’s more meaningful to track electric and heating fuel as a function of the quantity of plants we produce.
• We look at employee productivity that way too.  It’s important when we  hire additional people, that we have an expectation of the added production capacity we should gain as a result.

Responsibility

If the person reading this begins to feel that we’re blowing our own horn, perhaps that’s true.  One reason for sharing this information is that it feels good to be doing these things.  But our main reason for sharing it is that we believe that many, indeed most small businesses can do things like this too. It requires mindfullness and a willingness to look beyond the bottom line.  And it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.  But we found that everyone appreciates the way we run our business.  Our customers know we are a value-driven organization and that all our employees look after our quality as if they were owners.  Our partners and affiliates know we are stable and on a solid business foundation.  And our employees know we’re looking after them – that they are indeed the most valuable asset we have.

The things listed here in the sustainability section constitute components of a system.  They all work because they work together.  We’re not perfect and probably will never be the richest people on the earth. But, it’s fair to say we’ve achieved a balance between our people, our environmental and social responsibilities as good citizens, and our prosperity.  Also, we laugh a lot.