SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES

"Sustainability" and "going green" are words that are popular and are used in excess, but many business owners now discover that to carry out their operations with an ecological vision can help to reduce costs, to rethink old business practices and to open doors to new opportunities.

Here are some tips to get started:

START from the top: The commitment to return more eco-friendly to a business has to come from the management consultant, said Dan Bramblett, Executive in Estes Heating and Air Conditioning, contractor with headquarters in Atlanta: "Catch employees is the key to ensure that everyone is involved".

DO an inventory: To start analysing the business operations from the point of view of reducing energy consumption and waste: "Escudriñe workplaces where more money spent". The areas to be considered are lighting, energy for the functioning of its equipment, heating, air conditioning, transport and use of water.

With Estes, the largest expenditure of the company after the staff was transport and the maintenance of the fleet. As part of its energy audit, Estes found that eight of its large size trucks were assigned to sales that did not need them to make business decisions. The company began to replace the trucks with hybrid sedans, which increased the performance of gasoline of 7 kilometers per liter 16 kilometers per liter.

MAKE it simple: As an example, could turn off electronic devices during the night, the lights of roof during the hours of sunlight and open Windows to have natural ventilation instead of turning on the air-conditioning.

Adam Prochaska, partner in the firm of lawyers Harding & Shultz, in Lincoln, Nebraska, is trying to his colleagues to reduce the use of paper.

A portion of that role is used to print emails, which are filed in the records of clients. Instead, Prochaska and a handful of other more lawyers have begun to electronically archive these emails. He believes that if all the lawyers in the firm were to adopt this practice, you could save when less 8 thousand dollars a year in costs of paper, printing, workforce and file.

Look for discounts: once took it easy, the next step is to invest in energy efficient equipment: heating systems, air conditioners and other Office equipment. However, before thinking about that, check the local and federal programmes of incentives and discounts available from many public utility companies and Governments.