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How To Green Up Your Small Business
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Article 4: More Eco-Info You Can Use
You’ll be amazed at the number of ways you can go green.
Use recycled materials whenever possible. Macy Matarazzo, who runs an online pet boutique at macymacy.com, has found doing so makes good business sense.
She creates her “doggie couture” products out of existing fabrics she finds at thrift stores. Yes, doing so offers definite cost savings, but she also can “gain more out of it,” she says – perhaps finding a cool pocket here or a collar there.
“I wasn’t out to find an environmentally-friendly project,” says Denver-based Matarazzo. She doesn’t promote that green attribute of her company, but she says, “I have said ‘recycled materials’ in terms of emphasizing one-of-a-kind.”
Here are some additional eco-friendly tips:
- Purchase or lease fuel-efficient vehicles.
- Recycle your plastic, glass and aluminum. If applicable, also recycle your waste oil and solvents, and use biodegradable lubricants and hydraulic fluids.
- Recycle old toner cartridges from copiers, fax machines and printers, perhaps by dropping them off at participating office supply stores.
- Purchase remanufactured ink and laser toner for printers and fax machines.
- Embrace online marketing and reduce your printed materials.
- Trim down your product’s packaging materials.
- Neutralize your emissions of greenhouse gases by purchasing “offsets,” which support projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere. These are available through international brokers, nonprofits and online retailers, including popular travel Web sites like Travelocity and Orbitz. The latter are in the game to help you negate the output created by pollution-puffing jets. Many organizations that sell offsets offer calculators to help you figure out how many you should purchase.
- Hire a sustainability consultant. The field is so new there isn’t a directory to access, but searching the Web is a good place to start.
- Practice xeriscaping, which is landscaping that requires little water.
- Conduct meetings via teleconference if possible, as opposed to traveling to meetings.
- If you’re leasing space, ask your leasing company if it would be willing to enter into an arrangement to implement energy efficiency improvements. The Nevada Small Business Development Center has created a Landlord Tenant Lease Agreement that can be found at www.envnv.org/net/Lease_Addendum.pdf.
You may also find helpful resources from your trade association.
One particularly active group is the National Restaurant Association, which launched an environmental initiative in August 2006. The association wants to find ways to conserve energy, water and other natural resources; to increase recycling; and to “encourage the creation and use of sustainable materials and alternative energy sources that also reduce operational costs for restaurants,” according to a statement from the organization.
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How To Green Up Your Small Business
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