8 Tips To Having A Sustainable Small Business
As a small business owner you face unique challenges when it comes to adopting more sustainable business practices. You probably feel strapped for both time and cash, and while the idea of sustainability may be very important to you, you feel it is impossible to achieve. Never fear. We have outlined eight tips to make taking the sustainability plunge much easier.
8 Simple Tips To Having A Sustainable Small Business
#1. Start small. You don’t have to overhaul your business overnight. Implement one new change at a time. It will be much easier to plan, will build your confidence, and will save you money to help you move onto bigger sustainability goals.
#2. When an electronic device needs replacing, make sure you purchase an energy efficient model to fill its shoes. Energy efficiency has become so popular that it is easy to find the items you need at convenient prices. You may find that it costs no more to buy a “green” item than it would to buy its counterpart.
#3. Conserve paper usage. This is super easy; all you do is use less paper. You could:
● start double-sided printing
● use a bulletin board to spread company information
● reduce font sizes to fit more information on one sheet of paper
● make copies as needed rather than in bulk
#4. Don’t assume that green items cost too much. It becomes easier every day to find environmentally-friendly options for paper products, electronics, packaging materials, and more. Many times, you would be surprised at how little these items do cost. They may be very competitive with your current materials. Even if the items are a little more expensive, you might want to do the research to determine if the savings they will generate will pay for the difference.
#5. Utilize an energy management software program such as JadeTrack to get detailed, real-time reports of your resource usage for amazing new opportunities to reduce consumption. This one small investment could save you thousands of dollars in the first year. Click here to read more about JadeTrack and how they helped a school district save $350k in one year.
#6. Encourage a carpooling or public transportation program. If you don’t have the financial investment to pay for public transportation for your employees, focus on making these programs easier on their wallets with other opportunities for them save money or by tweaking the schedule to accommodate carpooling. If two or more employees would be likely to ride together, you could plan their schedule so that it will be more advantageous for them to do so.
#7. Recruit your employees to help you do the research and come up with the ideas for sustainable business practices. Maybe during each meeting, you could brainstorm ideas together.
#8. Strategically plan your sustainability goals to help you afford upfront investments in the future. You can begin with a no-cost or low-cost sustainable plan, such as reducing your paper consumption. This will save you money instantly because you will spend less money on paper. Tally up the savings, and use them to make an upgrade that will save you more money and pay for your next sustainable investment.
Becoming sustainable is a creative and adventurous process that is much like being a business owner, a task that obviously suits you. In this role, you have to be a problem-solver and find inventive ways to achieve things. There are many, many ways to achieve your sustainability goals, but I hope that these tips have given you a little information with which to jump start your attempts.