Creating a “green” business or transforming an established business into an eco-friendly environment, may seem like a very overwhelming task. Yet, in today’s era of escalating energy costs and climate change, energy efficiency is the most important aspect of greening your business. You can reap immediate savings by lowering your overall energy use and doing so will automatically reduce your business’s carbon emission footprint. You can also save money in the areas of waste reduction, equipment use, transportation, and building design.
Operating a green business is not only good for the environment, but good for your business's bottom line. Conserving resources and cutting down on waste saves money. The good news is that regardless of the type of business you run, there are simple things you can do, to run an environmentally friendly business.
- Don’t leave office for meetings: A lot of companies are availing the benefits of meeting virtually today. Not just the companies, this move benefits nature as well, through reduced costs of commute and office resources. Try GoToMeeting, it provides meeting and collaboration software.
- Organize your information online: You can use websites like Digg, Delicious and a number of other social bookmarking sites to organize your bookmarks. You don’t have to rummage through files and closets for the notes you have made or waste time and resources on printing documents too. You can access it all, with the simple click of the mouse and lend a helping hand to reduce the usage of paper as well!
- Switch to E-marketing: Compare the power (and COST) of brochures and handouts to blogs, email marketing and social networking sites today. With some research online, it won’t take you long to find that there are a number of ways to market online at no cost at all! Apart from reducing dependency on the depleting natural resources, e-marketing proves to be an extraordinarily powerful business tool.
- Switch to Green PCs: Green is the way to go! With the wave of environmental concern that is sweeping the world, a number of eco-friendly PCs have hit the market. Consider this, an IDC survey conducted in the first quarter of 2009 revealed that one in five Asia-Pacific respondents were willing to pay a premium on energy-efficient PCs despite the downturn. Another 33% said they were prepared to do so during better economic conditions.In order to comply with the new Energy Star 4.0 standard, a desktop PC must use under 50W in idle mode and 4W when asleep.
- Save energy with existing equipment. Make it a company policy to turn off all lights, equipment and machinery when it is not being used, especially nights and weekends.
- Much equipment is idle and unused for up to 90 percent of its life.
- Turning off the computers at the end of the day can save an additional 50 percent.
- Save energy by installing new or replacing existing equipment.
- Install low-cost energy monitors that can provide an accurate display of the cost and energy use of individual equipment. Research shows that this step alone can lead to energy savings of up to 40 percent.
- Lighting can often account for up to 40 percent of energy costs for many businesses. Installing motion-sensor or automatic dimmers helps to ensure, that you are efficiently shutting down lights in areas when no one is present.
- A very cost-effective upgrade is to replace all of your incandescent lighting with new compact fluorescent bulbs. Your older 1.5 inch diameter fluorescent tube lighting should also be replaced with newer 1 inch tubes and solid-state electronic ballasts.
- Install displacement toilet dams in toilet reservoirs. Placing one or two plastic containers filled with stones [not bricks] in the toilet's reservoir will displace about 4 liters of water per flush - a huge reduction of water use over the course of a year.
- Reduce unnecessary waste. Any waste that your company generates is an unnecessary cost. Waste is simply inefficient. Implement a recycling program and have a meeting on how to eliminate the items that are not recyclable. Setting up recycling in your workplace is something that is simple and invites your employees to become a part of the movement, giving them a sense of purpose.
- Encourage communications by email and read email messages on screen to determine whether it's necessary to print them. If it’s not, then don’t. If you need to keep a copy for legal reasons, or for various other reasons, there are online storage sites that may be utilized for this reason.
- Purchase recyclable products for your office, there are now many different vendors that supply not only recycled paper, but sell “green” cleaners, standard or not so standard, office supplies. These vendors will typically provide a recycling program of their own. A word of advice, if you are needing new office furniture, before investing money in purchasing it new, find out if your existing furniture can be refurbished.
- Panasonic RISAIKURA MS-N53 Indoor Composter
Recycling is one of the key aspects to help the earth stay greener. This gadget will turn your organic garbage like the food scraps into composts using its platinum-palladium catalyst. If you run it 3 hours, it will create composts ideal for fertilizing the plants and vegetables. Running it longer for six hours will ensure that the compost is further broken down which may be suitable for long term fertilization for trees.
Going green not only helps a business to do their part in minimizing their eco-foot print. The savings, especially at times like these, help everyone. If that’s not enough, there has never been a better time than now to tap into a laundry list of tax credits, rebates and other financial incentives designed to encourage individuals and businesses to go the greener mile. At the federal level in the U.S., individuals can reap the rewards of no less than eight different financial incentives. Besides these federal incentives, nearly every U.S. state has additional state or local incentives available.
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