From Guest Blogger Delicia Warren: What Businesses Can Do to Be More Environmentally Friendly

We all have a part to play in order to save our planet. Our unsustainable practices have changed the face of the earth, and continuing these unsustainable and wasteful ways of living and conducting business must stop. All businesses need to do their part to not only use less energy and ensure their business processes produce the least amount of waste possible, but they also need to ensure that they are doing the most for their community at large. Building a luxury hotel that runs on renewable energy is great, but if the construction has destroyed the natural habitats around it, then you are still hurting the environment.

Every business must do its utmost to be as environmentally friendly as possible. It means bettering your office so that it is as self-sufficient as possible, and it also means aiming to produce within a circular economy. It means implementing these steps to be more environmentally friendly:

Reduce Energy Consumption

The first step to being a greener company is to reduce energy consumption. It means turning off the lights, installing LED lights and other energy-saving alternatives into your office space. The less energy you use, the better.

Implement Green Energy Solutions

Once you have lowered your energy output, it’s time to think of ways to green the energy you use. There are many ways you can do this. Currently, there are energy companies that allow you to switch to 100% green energy sources, meaning you can ensure your office is powered only by renewables. If you are a larger company and want to be green while also cutting future costs, consider investing in solar panels. Commercial solar panel cost can be reduced significantly by using tax credits given to you by the government on all judicial levels, from local to federal, meaning you can offset the costs significantly. This added incentive is on top of the significant energy savings you will see once you switch to self-sustained energy production.

The government has many programs in place in order to encourage businesses to switch to renewable energy. Know what programs and credits you will be illegible for, and contact the company directly to work out a special plan so that you can fund your solar panels or another renewable energy source. Do this, and you can go completely off the grid and help your community move towards a greener future.

Invest in Green Alternative Transportation Methods

No company can exist without some form of transportation footprint. Either you have your own delivery trucks, or your employees drive to work, the effect is the same – you are putting harmful emissions into the air. Thankfully, there are many green alternatives. You could, for instance, set up a company-wide carpooling scheme so that your employees can ride share with each other. You could also switch your delivery vehicles to electric or hybrid options instead, to further lower the emissions you use.

Collaborate with Green Companies

We currently have a predominantly linear economy. This means new resources are harvested, then turned into a product, and then sold. From there it is disposed of, typically in landfills where it must go through the lengthy process of decomposition. In a recycling economy, the model is very similar, only rather than throwing out old products, consumers recycle. The recycling in this model typically loses quality and therefore value with each cycle, meaning it will eventually end up in the landfill just the same. An example of this is disposable water bottles. Consumers can recycle this plastic, yes, but that plastic can rarely be turned back into water bottles, and must instead be turned into something else.

A circular economy, on the other hand, is one that aims to reuse every material over and over again. This is done by sharing in the recycling process, so that plastic which is no longer suitable for one thing can be sold to another company who would make it into furniture, for example. This circular economy prolongs the life of all materials, and would therefore slow and reduce our over-reliance on raw materials.

To complement the circular economy is the triple bottom line theory of production. This theory places emphasis on profit, planet, and people. It means that when raw materials are harvested, they must be done in a way that ensures environmental protection, fair wages and living conditions for workers, and of course that it is financially feasible for companies to produce.

In order to achieve both of these green economic business practices, collaboration is needed. You cannot always take charge of production, and outsourcing will be needed. What is important here is that rather than outsourcing to the cheapest competitor, you outsource to a company that ensures fair treatment to both the people and the environment. The more companies collectively rally together and opt for greener alternatives, the cheaper this method of production will be. For now, support green initiatives and local groups and ensure your products are as green as possible.

Be Aware of Greenwashing

Greenwashing is when a company uses environmentally-friendly advertise in order to sell more products when in actuality they have not taken enough steps to ensure that their product is environmentally friendly at all. It occurs because there are little laws when it comes to branding your products as eco-friendly, meaning that companies can falsely market their products as green when their production is anything but. For instance, soap that uses whole ingredients is marketed as green and vegan when its production is highly polluting and detrimental to the local community where it was made.

Transparency is the best way to fight against greenwashing, and it can help consumers make better decisions about what they buy. Greenwashing isn’t just something that consumers need to be aware of, either. You need to ensure that the companies you collaborate with have a genuine desire to help the environment and are doing their best to make the future a greener, happier place so that you, too, can do your part for the future.

– Delicia Warren is a freelance writer, passionate about the environment, organic farming and food production. An advocate for a holistic approach to the world’s problems, she has a particular interest in the small changes individuals can make to their lifestyle to minimize their environmental footprint.