Small Business Trends

Go Paperless

• Go Paperless - John, The Small Biz Nest

“Go electronic with all your monthly bills and statements.”

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• Request Electronic Correspondence - Jason Cohen, A Smart Bear, @asmartbear

“When someone tries to give you paper – resume, brochure, pamphlet, legal document, anything – tell them:

“I can’t accept anything on paper. Please send me an electronic copy and I’ll file it.”

If they press you, or if you feel like it, you can follow with:

“If you give me that I have no place to put it – no filing cabinet, no drawers, and so forth. I have an excellent filing system on my computer. So if you hand this to me I will literally just put it in the trash, but if you send me it I will keep it forever.”

This is a nice way to pay it forward!”

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• Eliminate Paper Payroll Checks and Paystubs - EntreOrp

“A unique way to go green is to reduce and eliminate the unnecessary need of payroll checks and paystubs.

You can now store paystubs online so that your employees can access them when they want them. The added cost of paper and sometimes check paper to print this information is useless. Most employees don’t need them anyway until the end of the year.

Payroll checks can also be eliminated by having the use of a paycard for employees who do not have checking accounts. A lot of construction, temporary agencies and janitorial companies make use of a paycard.”

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• Eliminate Paper Cups - Erika Kerekes, answers.business.com

“Buy a coffee mug and a water bottle for every employee, plus a few extras for guests who come in for meetings. Stop buying paper cups, period.”

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• Offer Paperless Billing - Jeff Schultz, www.bill.com, @billcom

“Implement paperless bill management and payment. Use new web-based services that make it easy for vendors to send bills directly to the service, saving the environmental cost of postage and saving paper. Use these services to route bills to the right people in your company, saving paper and ink needed for duplication. And finally, use these services to make electronic payments to both large and small vendors. You’ll save on the time and cost of managing and paying bills, and also dramatically reduce your carbon footprint.”

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• Advertise Online - Valerie Vollmer, The Plug Nickel

“I am creating a ‘Coordinator of Cool’ position in our company. We have college students work as interns, whose job is to reach out and market the business in the social networking internet world. A world they know well. They create, update and maintaining the business image on the internet. They help market the restaurant and catering on MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc. and look out for the next up and coming social media site. They will assist with blogs and post about special events, menus, types of catering we are doing or have just done, which in return will keep the SEO high, with fresh content. Why is this Green? I’m not advertising in Magazine, newspapers, handouts! Has saved us thousands of dollars and generated business, and save me precious time from being on the computer!”

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• Share Documents Online - Jay Melone

“Use Google Docs so that people can access documents from anywhere without ever having to print something out.”

• Use an Energy Star Projector

“Purchase an energy star projector that can be used in meetings and eliminate the need to print anything.”

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• Go Paperless - Jen, Eco-Office Gals, @EcoOfficeGals

When I moved I did not connect my printer back to the computer that was a year ago!! Just go for it, paperless contracts, online document sharing, blogs, social media, there is simply no need to print! Just DON’T do it!

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• Switch to E-Invites - Kamalika

“Invitations for any function can be made as an e-invite. It is more likely to reach quickly and saves on paper cost.”

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• Transmit Electronic Documentation - Jonathan Shanes, Construction North, @jonnyshanes

“We provide General Contracting and Construction Management for business.  The construction process is very documentation oriented.   By utilizing Microsoft Office products combined with the output from Autocad and Adobe Acrobat, we are able to facilitate all of the necessary contracts, forms responses, meeting minutes, contracts, change orders, requests for information, and submittals of products for approval, shop drawings and other documentation using electronic means of transmission.”

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• Provide PDF Brochures - MaryAnn Markus, MaryAnn’s Home Staging

“Provide brochures and estimates as PDF documents. When visiting a new client I bring my laptop with me. It has wireless broadband Internet. I simply email the brochure, estimate and other information to client’s computer.  I don’t have to spend money on paper that the client may or may not want.  If the client wants the document printed out they can print it out in color on their home computer. Otherwise they can view it electronically. Not only does this save money but clients appreciate getting something right there in their inbox.”

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• Post Meeting Minutes Online - Summer Foster, Michigan Osteopathic Association

“We post committee and board meeting minutes in a password protected area on our website rather than printing and mailing.”

• Store Conference Handouts on a USB

“Provide conference handouts on a USB drive rather than printing out syllabuses.”

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• Add a Green Note to Emails - Israela Adah Brill-Cass, Buggie’s Bumpers, @brillcass

“One of the simplest tips that has had the greatest impact internally and we believe on others outside our business as well is simply adding a small green tree to the bottom of our signature line in all of our emails with the following message: Consider the environment. Please print this email only if necessary. We find ourselves being more mindful before printing an email and we’ve heard from people who have received our emails that it made more mindful about printing themselves.”

Adopt Green Practices

• Use Green Cleaning Products - Vicki, Go Green

“Green clean your office. Replacing one non-green cleaning product can have dramatic consequences. There are green cleaning choices for every cleaning job but let’s focus on windows. Example: One concentrated bottle of window cleaner can replace 728 bottles of a popular window cleaner that is not green. The toxins, chemicals and fumes would not be in the air of the office anymore, and the biodegradable green window cleaner is better for the environment. On top of that, the concentrated bottle costs about $10.00 and $3.00 for a spray bottle to add your own water to the two drops that are required to make a very effective window cleaner; the 728 bottles cost $3,232.32 at a discount store. That’s a money savings of over $3,200.00! Last, the cost to manufacture and ship the 728 bottles in terms of environmental pollution is eliminated, as well as the space they take in landfills. This one very easy to do green alternative saves money, is healthier, and helps the environment. How is that for a Win-Win-Win suggestion?”

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• Use Wooden Pencils - Tami M. Pederson

“I believe it’s time to return to using the old but faithful #2 wood pencil. How many pens to you through away each year? The wood pencil does the same job as the pen except when you need to sign any “legal” documents.”

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• Buy a Laptop - Martin Lindeskog, Egoist International Business Coordinator, @lyceum

“The best way to help the environment, i.e., your surroundings, is to become a real supporter of the industrial revolution and use cost effective products that is a result of inventors, business owners and capitalists. I think we will see new super compact computer like ultra efficient notebooks / laptops instead of “clunky” big PCs in the future. The trend is that people are buying laptops instead of PCs. It will be interesting to follow the battery manufacturer, Boston Power, in its quest for the “next-generation lithium-ion battery technology platform.”

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• Promote Green Practices - Red Hot Franchises

“Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. There are the three Rs and are on their way to becoming good business practice for many small businesses for going Green. It is the buzz going on these days. Promoting green practices can be helpful to your Business success.”

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• Less Is More: Use It or Lose It - Rosa Say, Talking Story, @rosasay

“We at Say Leadership Coaching adopted this mantra as part of our Core 2009 Initiatives: “Less is more: Use it or lose it.” It started out as clutter-busting to streamline the office environment and move toward more mobile and virtual work. However once we’d warmed up with the usual material culprits we turned our attention to all our business practices – outdated coaching/teaching curriculum, workshop exercises we were tiring of – just about everything. We have found the mantra is helping us break auto-pilot routines and put any sacred cows out to pasture where they belong. Going “green” in your thought processes can release a lot of creativity and banish complacency.”

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• Purchase Wind Power - April Femrite, Naturally Bamboo, @Naturallybamboo

“Contact your power company to see if they offer wind energy as an option. For about $4.00 more per month we are purchasing wind power instead of non-renewable sources.”

• Buy Eco-Friendly Banners

“Buy promotional banners that are made out of recycled pop bottles and printed with water-based ink.”

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• Send Green Holiday Cards - Jessica Gardner

“For the upcoming holiday season, send clients and other business contacts a green holiday greeting cardcards are 50 percent sugarcane by-products and 50 percent recycled paper content, envelopes are from 100% recycled paper: http://bit.ly/oRNUJ”

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• Use Recyclable Containers - Natasha K

“All Restaurants, for takeout purposes, should provide containers made from non-plastic containers or at the very least recyclable containers. There is still too much Styrofoam, plastic lids, and hard plastic containers everywhere! Also utensils made from cornstarch or potatoes are great! A great direction restaurants should start to go is to charge customers for takeout containers, encouraging patrons to bring their own containers from home.”

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• Shop Local - Stacey Rose, Storey Kenworthy

“Shop and support local companiesby shopping locally you save on emissions and help the local economies.”

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• Upgrade Your Equipment - Yiana Palacios, Design Leap, @DesignLeap

“Replace your ancient equipment! Computers are in every office and they stay on for hours at a time. Make sure that yours is energy efficient. Take a look at the Energy Star site to help you choose the right one http://tinyurl.com/2c2d2f.

I’ve just upgraded to MacBook Pro, it’s super energy efficient http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/environment.html”

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• Use Rechargeable Batteries - Simon Heseline

“Use rechargeable batteries in your wireless mouse / keyboard, prevents all those batteries from filling landfills.”

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• Use Free Virtualization Products - Srinivas Vivek, Inquisitive

“For small business IT systems, use free virtualization products like VMware ESXi, VMware Server and desktop to run multiple virtual machines (Windows or Linux) on single physical machine. There will be lot of savings in Capex (hardware) and Opex (power and administrators). Productivity also will improve as less management is required.”

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• Buy Environmentally Friendly Supplies - Cathy, Joys, www.justorganizeyourstuff.org, @JOYS

“Buy environmentally friendly supplies. Yes, they may cost a bit more. But the more people who buy them, the more affordable for everyone they will become.”

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• Update Trade Show Displays - Deborah Elms, Imprinted Originals

“Save money and help the environment by selecting (or switching to) light weight portable displays using fabric graphic displays created with low-VOC inks.

What makes them green? Key points = less impact on environment from low-VOC inks, less impact from aluminum or aluminum alloy frames, and *significantly* less gasoline/carbon used in shipping due to much lower weights.”

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• Switch to Fluorescent Bulbs - Kirby Beaver

“For larger manufacturing facilities, they could have $50K in savings and help the environment by switching all their halogen bulbs to fluorescent bulbs!”

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• Green Your Business Rewards - Lynn, Celebrate Green

“Instead of giving “things” as gifts or awards, offer experiences, tickets to events or privileges within the company.”

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• Ask for Green Suggestions - Jooled, Andzia’s Amber Jewelry

“Create a Green Suggestion Box & place it somewhere with a lot of workplace traffic, in a very visible location. Pass the recycled packaging box, appropriated cooler or whatever you use around & ask different departments, groups or people – whatever the case may be – to decorate it with a fun, upbeat green workplace theme. These can be drawings, things pasted on the box, items affixed to the box, etc.

Make reviewing – & implementing- the suggestions a regular part of the office/workplace routine & you’ll find many smart, money saving tips flow in on an ongoing basis, ones that are tailor made for your workplace.

Give people a way to share, and believe it or not, they usually will.”

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• Make Going Green Fun - Ron Reed, @themortgagedoc

“Make going green fun for the entire office: best ideas= awards, time off, coupons for energy efficient appliances, etc.  But by all means, please do not form another committee!”

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• Buy Used or Refurbished - Tim Grahl, Out:Think, @timgrahl

“Always buy used or refurbished equipment. Save it from the landfill while also saving money!”

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• Get Some Office Plants - Naomi Heimeyer, Redwood Ranch

“Have 1 plant for every 100 sq ft of office space. This allows you to naturally filter your air in the office. It also seems to brighten the tone of the office when you have other living things.”

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• Look into Commercial Solar Systems - Kevin, Boston Green Building, @bostongreen

“Look into affordable commercial solar systems that could be put on the roof of your company.  Not only do most states offer great incentives and low interest loans for solar system, but the payback period can be under 10 years in many cases.  It looks great and shows a company’s serious commitment to going green.”

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• Set Up Home-Based Call Centers - Matt Storey, Direct Interactions, Inc., @storeyma

“If you operate a call center, consider setting up a home-based agent program.

REI, a Seattle-based outdoor retailer, analyzed their entire business and concluded that employee commutes were by far their largest contribution to pollution.  By setting up a home-based agent program, they reduced the environmental impact of their operations.  Even more exciting, they reduced their overall call center costs.”

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• Use Recycled Paper Products - Sadie Stocks, Home Works Remodeling

“Switch to recycled toilet paper, paper towels and Kleenex.”

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• Use Biodegradable Packaging - Rhonda Page, Special Kids World

“Products should be packed in biodegradable packaging.  There is too much plastic and Styrofoam in packaging.”

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• Manage Telecommuting Employees Efficiently - Anne M. Wenzel, Econosystems, @annewenzel

“Learn how to manage telecommuting employees or contractors.  If you can keep on-site visits to a minimum, there is less traffic and congestion on the roads, and fewer fossil fuels burned.  It takes being well organized about giving assignments and providing feedback, but with some practice and documenting of procedures, telecommuting management skills can be learned.

For employees, consider paying a training wage for the first 3 months while you work out and document the telecommuting system.  For contractors, who typically receive a much higher hourly rate, check references and make sure projects and payment schedules are well defined up front.

With offsite help, you can grow your business and become more profitable without leaving a bigger ecological footprint.”