For many in the banking and finance industry, October can be a very scary month. In fact, October 19th is the financial corollary of the modern day Halloween. Normally stalwart professionals begin to fear even their own shadows on this anniversary of 1987’s “Black Monday” when the financial markets plummeted 22.6% and shed $500 billion in one day.

This year’s October 19^th threatened to be just as horrific as Caterpillar, the world’s premier manufacturer of earth-moving construction and mining equipment, stated that the U.S. economy will be “near to, or even in, recession” next year… The markets went ghost white — the Dow was down 367 points or 2.64%, its largest point drop on October 19^th since 1987, and the largest percentage drop since August 9^th when the European Central Bank infused money into the banking system to stabilize the U.S. subprime housing and mortgage crises. And, all of this happened against the additional backdrop of record high prices for energy, raw materials and labor.

Fortunately, the Fed and some fellow financial industry good guys scared away the specters, and restored hope … at least for now.

So, the question I began to ask myself was, “How could my banking customers – business owners and families – and other fellow Texans sustain hope and rational growth?”

For me, the answer may be found in an insightful editorial entitled “An old habit could save us all” that was featured in The Houston Chronicle on Sunday, October 14^th the weekend before all these events.

The article starts, “Imagine: a bank that promotes thrift (savings)! This could be the start of something big.” Citing foreclosure and bankruptcy rates, the authors describe how our nation’s attitude of saving has transformed into a monstrous appetite for overspending. One of the scariest realities described is that children today are more likely to live through their parents’ bankruptcy than their parents’ divorce.

The editorial also quotes a leading currency advisor who is urging banks to remedy these afflictions by returning to the bygone days of concentrating on ‘harder-to-get deposits’ and instilling ‘the savings habit by going into schools and helping kids set up small passbook accounts.’

Finally, the authors Boshara and Longman bridge the seemingly paradoxical gap between conservation of money and conservation of the environment:

“Conserving financial resources is not only still essential to individual liberty; it is also essential to moderating wasteful consumption and saving the environment.”

I believe that conservation and stewardship define good business. And, these yield freedom. The heroes whom Tom Brokaw named the Greatest Generation, that is, the generation who lived through and thrived after the Great Depression – modeled this result by living out their good old-fashioned values and habits (i.e., savings and thrift).

We created Green Bank as a community bank to reconcile these issues of quality of life, profit, and the well-being of present and future generations. And, our tagline confirms our commitment: Saving you more than money.

At Green Bank, sustainability can be seen in our products (Totally Green ^SM Money Market Account) and much more. You’ll see ‘green’ in our properties (e.g., we’ve purchased three years of 100% green power for all of our branches and new headquarters, the choice of which costs us less than conventional electricity and improves Texas’ air quality; and, our new headquarters is a LEED® Registered, healthy, high performance green building), our processes (e.g., incentivizing ourselves and customers to think systematically, to go paperless, etc.), and most importantly our people – including you and me. For example, I traded up from my gas-guzzling and polluting SUV to a Toyota Prius, and reduced my household’s carbon footprint by 50%. Because returning to better habits required me to become a student again, we have dedicated one-third of our website to education and learning … to our future.

Green	Products		Healthy	Profits
	Properties			People
	Processes			Planet
	People

For me, the rewards of a sustainable or ‘green’ approach to work and life have been easiest to learn and appreciate once I started with my own business and life. Rather than pressure you with scare tactics, I hope that you’re inspired to join us in saving you more than money.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Green Bank. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.