Five Simple Ways to Make Your Business Greener
Making your business greener helps both your business and the quality of life on our planet. More than just recycling, "green" has become a way of thinking that specializes in making businesses more efficient by optimizing each aspect of the business. This means reducing expenditures on things such as energy while increasing your company’s per capita output.
Every business has a basic supply chain. Essentially, this means goods and services are brought into the business and used or processed in some way. Once processing has happened, the output is either product or waste. When making your business greener, the important thing is to implement green thinking into each part of your company’s supply chain, from input and processing to output. The best way to do this is by creating and implementing a green business plan.
A green business plan involves an examination of each aspect of your company’s supply chain. The idea is first to identify any areas where deficiencies exist within your chain. Once you have identified problem areas, you need to create green procedures that can help alleviate the problem. In the final phase, you implement these new procedures, making your business not only greener, but also more efficient and cost effective.
The following are five tips to help you get started in developing your green business plan:
1. Purchase green supplies: Whether its office supplies or raw materials for production, purchase goods that are less toxic and better for the environment. Examples include buying paper products that have a higher recycled content, working with suppliers who recycle their packing material, and raising your awareness as to which suppliers are greener both in their processing and products.
2. Use green machines: Because green thinking has become popular, more equipment and machines are being designed to save energy and increase productivity while helping the environment. The Energy Cost Savings Council estimates that businesses can cut energy costs 60 percent by replacing inefficient electrical equipment with new equipment using electrotechnologies. Visit GreenBiz.com for information on purchasing computer equipment that is friendlier to the environment.
3. Optimize energy and material usage: By implementing a few simple practices you can save money while your business becomes greener. Your local utility company offers free energy audits that will pinpoint areas where you improve your energy usage. Turn off equipment when it is not being used, particularly at night and on weekends. Use alternative forms of energy, such as solar and fuel cells, whenever possible. Setting up a solar system not only pays for your business’s energy needs, but in some areas you can also sell your excess power back to the power company for an energy credit.
4. Recycle and reduce waste: Your first prerogative should be to recycle your waste, because you can either reuse it again or sell it to someone who can recycle the material. In a sustainable supply chain, your output of waste moves over into input. This creates a circle where wastes once again become raw materials and thus are no longer waste. The benefits are that you don’t have to pay to dispose of the waste and your purchasing costs are less because you don’t have to buy as much raw material.
5. Make your products biodegradable or recyclable: When you use materials and processes that are green, your eventual product will also be environmentally friendly. When going green you need to think about reducing your environmental footprint and increasing your contribution to the organic nature of our planet. The idea is to balance technology with the needs of the Earth.
