Green Options

American Express, in partnership with NBC Universal, is holding a competition to “Shine A Light” on an “inspiring” small business.
I find so many of you inspiring, I’m thinking: Could it be you?
They are looking for small businesses that are:

Innovative
Give back to the community
Demonstrate a “customer first” mentality.

If so, they want to hear your story and you might win a $100K grant in cash and marketing support from American Express.

I just read about the People’s Stimulus Package and am impressed.  Started by an Alabama pharmacist who thought his little town need its own stimulus, he gave his employees $700 bucks each ($300 to part timers) in $2 bills.  All he asked is that they give 15% to a charity and to spend the rest locally in independent stores.  Now, Turman Commercial Painters has formalized the program and are hoping it spreads across the country.

I hope it does, but I would add one more requirement: Make the spending green.
Buying local is itself an excellent greening strategy, in part because of evidence that there are significant social, environmental, and economic benefits to creating local economies. Beyond that, a local green stimulus is a great opportunity to educate staff about what they can do with a few extra bucks.
Here are twelve easy, low-cost things you can do to stimulate the local economy green-ly:

Join the locavore movement and buy produce, bread, food stuffs and crafts made within your home town .
Buy some high efficiency bulbs.

In some respects, waste is immeasurable—it touches every aspect of your business, from the scrap paper that fills your waste bins to the fuel you use for business travel.
And while we know that that aiming for zero waste is a fast, cheap and effective strategy for combating climate change, its not always easy to do. You can’t find the resources, it involves trips here and there, its expensive. There are all sorts of obstacles. However, these six companies (some are actually non-profit organizations and government agencies) make recycling easy.
1. Earth911.org is an excellent site with good recycling information.  Their recycling search tool makes it easy to locate waste collectors and drop-off sites.  It covers resources for paper, metal, hazardous waste, plastic, glass, electronics, automotive, household, garden, and construction waste. Two of my favorite resources are: 1) a great list of manufacturer and retail take-back e-waste programs and 2) an awesome free widget for your website that can not only give your customers access to the world’s largest database of over 100,000 recycling locations, but can pre-populate recyclable materials search to fit your readers. For example, a blog focused on car care can auto-populate the widget to search for locations that accept used motor oil or car batteries.

2. LampRecycling.com is a new online resource for facilities that need a simple and cost-effective way to recycle their fluorescent bulbs, CFLs, batteries, ballasts, and electronic waste. These guys make it super easy to recycle. You can order recycling containers for multiple types of waste and return them via pre-paid FedEx. Once the waste has been received for recycling, a recurring order is triggered and a new EasyPak container is shipped out automatically. You can view recycling reports that give totals of all waste you have recycled and every time waste is recycled with EasyPak, you are issued a certificate of recycling that verifies your recycling efforts and details exactly how much waste was recycled.

Consumer Alert: There are three things you need to know about remanufactured ink and toner cartridges:

They are not inferior in quality to new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) products. (In fact, in 1997, the US EPA stated that remanufactured products are “as good as new.”)
Using a remanufactured or any cartridge other than that of the OEM will not in fact void the printer equipment warranty. (Not that manufacturers didn’t try.  They did but the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 specifically states that a warranty may not be voided because of the use of aftermarket products.)
Buying them will typically save you money and selling spent cartridges will typically make you money.

(This information comes courtesy of Ecogreenoffice.com whose primer about the truth about remanufactered print cartridges contains lots of additional information.)

There are two sides to greening your ink and toner purchases: The Buy and the Sell.

The Sell. The act of selling ink and toner cartridges is one of the easiest ways to make money and be green at the same time. On the revenue side, cartridges are valuable (some are worth as much as $22). If cash isn’t what your looking for, retailers such Office Max, Office Depot and Staples have rewards programs that give up to $3 in store credit for each eligible cartridge and have drop boxes in stores. (Office Max also has a postage-paid shipping program for those who recycle high volumes of cartridges—up to 300 a month). In any event, selling spent cartridges is easy and sometimes even lucrative.

The Buy. Want to know the impact of all those cartridges you’re using? The folks at SB Office Supplies, an online office supply retailer with an extensive green catalog, have a nifty Remanufactured Cartridge Savings Calculator that tells how much oil is saved and how many cartridges stay out of land fills when you buy remanufactured cartridges.

Convinced? They are basically two routes to go.

In the past I’ve written about how you can save money by reducing the amount of paper you use and the 7 basics of green procurement (which includes defining office supplies standards). Now, let’s talk about basic office supplies that are great, green and cheap.
It’s easier to buy green office products than ever before. The three largest office supply retailers, Staples, Office Depot and Office Max each carry thousands of reasonably priced products with recycled content and other environmental attributes.
Some even innovate. Take Office Max, they were one of the first national retailers to carry TerraCycle products and they now sell a range of their products from notebooks made from used potato chip bags to juice pouch pencil cases.

There are also a number of green office suppliers online such as Green Line Paper.com, TheGreenOffice.com or Green Apple School Supply that offer thousands of eco-friendly products. And green promotional item companies like John Simonetta’s ProformaGreen.com and EcoPromotionsOnline.com are also good places to find green office supplies.

I found ten awesome green office supply products under $10 because no matter how small every single purchase has an impact on the environment. Whether you’re buying copy paper or forklifts, that purchasing decision is an environmental decision. So, if you want to start with some small stuff, basic office supplies are a great place to start.  Here are my favorite cheap, green office supplies:

#1. on my list is reasonably priced private-label recycled content copy paper from office supply retailers. A scan of websites today (July 2, 2009) revealed the following prices for a 10 ream case (5,000 sheets) of 30% PCW 20 lb. 8.5″ x 11′ copy paper:

Office Depot: $3.30/ream (for a limited time until stock lasts; regularly $4.00/ream)

Office Max: $4.00/ream

Staples: $4.10/ream

2. & 3. The TerraCycle E-Waste Recycling Can is made from 100% e-waste (such as crushed computers and fax machines) that would otherwise have ended up in landfills. It comes in both blue and green, holds 28 quarts and costs $9.99 (www.officemax.com).  For a more funky and slightly smaller version, the TerraCycle 12″ Urban Art Recycled Trash Bin (its that groovy one above) also costs $9.99 (ShopOnlyGreen.com).

Another post inspired by a HARO request.  This time it was an ask for low or no-cost tools used by small businesses.  I did a quick search for the word “free” in my book and realized there are dozens.  Here are my 19 favorites:

Free energy-efficiency information, resources, and technical advice—ENERGY STAR for Small Business provides free information, resources, and technical advice on hundreds of cost-savings practices. Includes a downloadable copy of the free ENERGY STAR for Small Business Guide, “Putting Energy into Profits” and information about ENERGY STAR–labeled products.
Free recycling and conservation signs—You can customize, download, and print free recycling and conservation signs at recyclereminders.com.
Free control of your IT—If you run a network, software from companies like LocalCooling.com allows the settings on computers to be controlled centrally so you can automatically turn those babies off when no one is using them.
Free Green IT for Dummies—HP sponsors a free, downloadable, condensed, limited edition of the Green IT for Dummies guide.
Free recycling bins—The Coca-Cola/NRC Recycling Bin Grant Program provides recycling bins to selected grant recipients for the collection of beverage container recyclables in public settings.
Free rideshare widget for websites— at GooseNetworks.com.

This post answers a question posed by @jonat82 in a Twitter conversation:

How do you convince your property managers that greening the building is a financially sound investment?

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet argument for this one. Like the majority of small businesses you probably lease your facilities. If you do, you’ll find that some greening strategies require the cooperation of your landlord.

You may also find that your landlord does not yet see the financial benefits to making efficiency-related capital improvements because, in a typical commercial lease the landlord pays for improvements but the tenants, who pay the utility bills, reap the benefits of the savings.

Don’t give up hope.The inclusion of environmental criteria into relevant lease clauses, such as requiring Energy Star appliances or providing recycling services, are becoming more commonplace. So, the best time to talk to your landlord about greening is when you are signing or renegotiating your lease.

Here’s a basic marketing tip: Don’t position your product as green.  Well, not primarily green. Instead, position your products and services first as delivering core consumer benefits then-as a second set of attributes-green. You may even find that your competitors are not onto this savvy positioning strategy.
A couple weeks ago I was looking for examples of this principle. I wanted to show how a company’s marketing message should extend beyond greenness to appeal to other core consumer attributes people expect from a good products.  I put out a query on HARO and received dozens of interesting products.  Of those, five stood out.

The first thing I noticed about Vers iPod Docks is that they are incredibly beautiful.  But, they first thing theat Vers wants you to know about their products is that they sound great. They let the fact that they have been touted as the most environmentally friendly iPod dock available speak for itself and focus instead on the benefits that consumer’s want in a an iPod dock: Great sound and good looks.  In the words of David Laituri, partner in Sprout Creation makers of Vers products:

“We tend to focus on superior sound quality and design, and environmental thoughtfulness a fast second. Since our sustainable design efforts are a work in progress, we avoid ‘green’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ whenever possible.”

Green Toys are made out of recycled milk containers and are made in the USA (so from a supply chain position they are very environmentally sound.) Green Toys are also packaged in recycled corrugated boxes with no plastics, cellophane or twist-ties, and are 100% recyclable. But most importantly, they positioned as safe (they contain no traceable amounts of Phthalates or BPA and have no external coatings with lead paint) and fun (they are chunky and colorful and beg to be played with).

Why bother improving energy efficiency? We know we should, but how do you articulate why? Of course, if there is an ROI case to be made then the analysis is easy. But really, it seems to beg a larger issue. Is there a reason beyond ROI?

Whatever the industry, managing costs is good for business, and increasing energy efficiency and reducing energy costs does just that. Given rising energy prices and a growing awareness of the importance of energy conservation, a carefully conceived energy management strategy may well be one of the most important steps a business can take to sustain and grow business.

Furthermore, research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors suggests that companies with a clear energy management strategy have a competitive advantage. Companies that lead in energy management achieved superior stock and financial performance over “laggards.” They even achieved significant financial premiums in stock prices over competitors. This from the National Environmental Education Foundation:

Companies have been engaging in energy-efficiency strategies for years as a means to control costs. Increasingly, a body of evidence suggests that companies that take a systematic and strategic approach to energy management can enjoy a broad array of tangible and intangible benefits of interest to investors. As financial analysts and institutional investors come to understand this energy-value connection, energy management is becoming another measure by which they assess companies.

A question on a LinkedIn hotel group was asked the other day: How does your housekeeping team encourage guests to recycle? Do you place separate bins in the guest rooms for paper, glass etc.? How can you do this while maintaining a 4 and 5 diamond look? And it made me think about what advice to give about getting buy-in for recycling programs. In this case, from both staff and consumers.
It seems to me that the topic of how to effectively implement recycling programs is essentially the same regardless of business size. At its most basic, there are three components to implementing a successful recycling program:  

Make it easy.
Communicate the expectation of recycling.
Communicate the how and why of the program to employees.

Starting with making it easy, it may seem self-evident, making recycling easy for patrons and staff is the number one action you can take to facilitate a recycling program.You can do this by providing clearly marked containers throughout the room and locating them in places where people need them, such as near sinks, kitchens and minibars. As to the issue of matching the aesthetics of the facility, as long as the recycling bins are just as aesthetically pleasing as your existing trash cans (or hidden in cabinets) I do not see how they detract from the ambiance. That brings me to the second point.