Innovation in Sustainability Small Co.: FMYI Inc.

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Justin Yuen, FMYI

FMYI Inc.'s product doesn't generate emissions.

It isn't made with chemicals, doesn't produce waste, nor does it use vast amounts of natural resources.

FMYI even has a thing against using paper.

FMYI Inc. is a software provider, so by its very nature it’s more carbon-neutral than the vast majority of small businesses in the world. It could stand pat, brand itself sustainable, and almost nobody would argue.

But that just wouldn’t fit the profile of Justin Yuen, the president of Portland-based company.

Yuen, who spent the final two years of a seven-year stint at Nike Inc. incorporating sustainable practices into the business, has developed a collaborative software product that helps other companies do the same thing.

The FMYI product is designed to make managing projects more efficient. The system uses a single platform to file documents, send messages, and otherwise monitor progress and communicate with fellow project team members using an interface similar to popular social networks.

It removes the need for hard-drive clogging e-mail, enables more efficient telecommuting, and stores documents to eliminate desk clutter.

The company calls it a “sustainable office.”

But before if it’s going to market such a product, Yuen believes FMYI — an abbreviation of “For My Innovation” — must be a living embodiment of the sustainable office.

In other words, “we need to walk the talk,” Yuen said.

Like its software, FMYI promotes telecommuting, allowing it to have staff in Florida and Louisiana. It provides transit passes to eligible employees and car-sharing discounts through Zipcar.

It acquires carbon offsets for the power consumed by its servers. Every employee takes a series of sustainability courses. The company is a tenant of Portland’s Leftbank Project on North Broadway Boulevard, a building designed using sustainable principles.

It’s paperless, to the point that a recent visit from a printer salesman later elicited modest chuckles from the company’s staff.

Every detail of how the 10-person full-time staff works is evaluated as part of a scavenger hunt to reduce waste and conserve. That energy hog of a server? Phased out. An old refrigerator that ate too much power? Gone. Sold on Craigslist and replaced with an energy-efficient replacement.

“Do we need to sit there with the brightest screen possible?” asked Graeme Byrd, FMYI’s sales and marketing manager.

No. So computer monitors are now dimmer.

This isn’t done in the name of sustainability alone.

Yuen runs a boot-strapped small business, and as such there’s a need to save costs.

Promoting telecommuting allowed FMYI negates the need for a big office space. Reducing energy consumption also reduces bills. And promoting sustainability as a corporate mantra becomes an attractive recruitment tool.

“That’s been a real differentiator, at least in the software arena,” he said.

It’s also helping FMYI to improve brand awareness.

Last November, Yuen was invited to the national Net Impact conference in San Francisco, where he was part of a panel discussion on employee engagement in sustainability. Alongside him were executives from Intel Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and food and facilities management form Sodexho.

That led to a similar panel appearance in April at the Fortune Brainstorm: Green 2010 event in Laguna Niguel, Calif., in which Yuen sat beside officials from NBC Universal, Ernst & Young and Global Hyatt Corp.

Building a foundation around sustainability, “it helped us get some visibility and speaking opportunities,” he said. “That’s helping with business development.”

FMYI declined to reveal revenue figures, but sales last year — in the heart of the recession — grew 275 percent.

It was aided by the increasing acceptance of social network platforms and, of course, its sustainability message, Yuen said.