Green your business and save money!

About a month ago, I read a piece in the New York Times about saving money by making your business greener. I’m no tree hugger, but most of the energy saving tips given by the NY Times (and many others) actually make sound business sense – as well as do something for the environment. A win win situation. The NY Times piece suggests any changes need to start at the top i.e. at the owner/manager level. I could not agree more, as it’s really all about changing behaviour, and only those is power in a business can make and support the changes.

Here’s what you can do in your business:

I’ll sound like a real accountant here, but start with an inventory of the energy you use, the water you use and the waste you generate. This is your benchmark.
Try to work out what you can do. Can you get staff to be more energy aware? Can you recycle (or sell) waste, can you recycle water? Can you replace paper with electronics – email invoices for example
Track what you do and report on it. How much energy have you saved, how much less waste has been generated and so on.

And keep repeating the above 3 steps over and over again. Sounds like a lot of work, but the funny thing is that overtime the behaviours of you and your staff will change and spotting greener ways of doing things will become second nature.