Practice Green Flyer - April 2024 - 4

Managing Your Dental Office's Carbon Footprint
Artisan Dental, Madison, WI
Nicole Andersen, DDS and Scott Andersen, Co-founder & Director of Stakeholders Stewardship
W
hen Artisan Dental was established in 2014, Dr. Nicole
Andersen and her husband, Scott Andersen set
out on a mission focused on serving five key stakeholder
groups. These groups included patients, team members,
suppliers/contractors, community at a local and global level,
and the environment. When thinking about how to serve the
environment as a stakeholder in Artisan Dental's early years,
they focused on incorporating a range of energy-saving
strategies right from the start. Scott Andersen remarked,
" We purchased EnergyStar appliances and computers,
installed motion-sensing light switches in rooms, and chose
a facility with an abundance of natural daylight with southfacing
exposure. "
When creating the mission statement, Mr. Andersen said,
" We considered the environment to be a stakeholder in
our practice because it provides our business with a range
of necessary inputs such as clean air, clean water, soils to
grow food, bio-diversity, including animal, fish, and insect
populations that create an eco-system conducive to life,
food, and medicine production. "
Each year Mr. Andersen and the leadership team engage
in a strategic planning process that considers ways to add
value to each of the five main stakeholder groups, including
the environment. One year, the environmental goal was to
purchase 100% of the practice's electricity from renewable
sources. " That reduced our carbon footprint by 83%, " says
Mr. Andersen. " And we just had to make a phone call to our
local utility and make the switch to their renewable energy
option. " For Artisan Dental's 4,000+ square foot practice, the
switch to renewable energy costs an additional $1,200 a year.
" We were very happy that an 83% reduction in our carbon
footprint can be achieved with a relatively modest increase in
cost. " Mr. Andersen says that if a local utility doesn't offer a
renewable option, then renewable energy credits might be
a good alternative.
Mr. Andersen emphasized that investments in value creation
for its stakeholder groups can also be used to demonstrate
that Artisan Dental is bringing its mission to life, developing
4
brand equity, positive public relations, and marketing
opportunities. An example of an internal marketing and brand
equity creation approach included creating in-office flyers
posted at the front desk, patient waiting rooms, and exam
rooms that read, " Your care powered by the Sun and Wind. "
Dr. Nicole Andersen and her husband, Scott Andersen
One of the next value-creation goals Artisan Dental identified
for the environment stakeholder was to become carbon
neutral. To accomplish this goal, Artisan Dental hired a
consultant specializing in the measurement and offsetting of
carbon emissions that gave them a summary of their carbon
utilization. To measure the carbon use of the practice, Mr.
Andersen shared information about which products the
practice purchases, how much of each product, and where
Continued on page 5
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Practice Green Flyer - April 2024

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