If you have recently taken the plunge and made a foray into the world of startups, your head may be full of ideas for your business vision, financial forecasting and product launch. What you may not have considered are ways to ensure your business can flex its eco-credential muscles. Sustainability and green are the buzzwords of the day. You may think that painting your startup a fresher hue of green may be costly, a diversion from the more pressing tasks at hand and something that you can come back to once your business is more established. However, being an eco-friendly business entity can actually make you more efficient, save you money and make your company a more appealing place to work.
You may be worried about your funding, cash flow and profit margins. This may result in the thought of being sustainable and listening to the eco-friendly hype being put on the back burner. However, by linking your financial considerations to the idea of being green, you may find your business being more cost-effective and money efficient.
Paper Waste
Gone are the days of walking into an office and seeing row upon row of gunmetal grey filing cabinets full of ring binders of paper contracts, invoices and documentation. The most eco-friendly businesses choose to remain as paper free as possible. They will utilise emails, encourage their employees not to print anything unless absolutely necessary and use online storage systems rather than hard copy filing. There’s no need for paperwork to be languishing in the depths of cupboards any longer. Cloud solutions can securely file away important and sensitive documentation and can be downloaded and printed as needed.
Businesses that are paper free will also emulate this ethos in their relationship with their customer base preferring instead to communicate via email. This will eliminate the need for using a postage service, delivery firm and the costs associated with it.
Paper also goes beyond the generic documentation that all companies have to contend with. Anything that is printed off should then be recycled if it is no longer needed. If your office has a coffee machine or a canteen, make sure that you pay a little more to utilise eco-friendly cups, bags and containers. Businesses are using biodegradable packaging to show off their greener mindsets. They may cost a little more but can be reused and will help save the environment.
Energy Usage
It’s important that every member of staff is on board with your greener aspirations. You need to have a sustainability policy, training to support your staff team’s understanding of your ethos and keep your eco-strategy under constant review.
When it comes to energy bills, being more eco-friendly can save your company money on utilities. Install LED energy saving light bulbs, make sure that lights are turned off if rooms are not being used and ensure that laptops, monitors and electrical devices don’t remain on standby overnight wasting energy and costing you money. You could go one step further and install solar panels to heat the water your office uses or set up a small wind turbine to provide your office heating. While these may require a costly financial outlay initially, your energy bills will reduce dramatically, and your eco-friendly initiatives will pay for themselves in less than a decade.
Cycle Schemes
Companies are trying to instill a sense of greener responsibility into their employees by setting up cycle to work schemes. An initial launch with great fanfare and publicity could result in your employees becoming healthier, happier and more productive as they choose the bicycle instead of the car. Linking with a local bike supplier could lead to subsidised discounts for employees meaning that you are supporting a local business while ensuring your staff team aren’t responsible for quite so many exhaust fumes that are damaging the ozone layer. Even if the more active approach isn’t suitable, a car share scheme could still see your company flexing its eco-friendly muscles. You could set up an incentive scheme rewarding those employees that demonstrate the greatest sustainable attitude.
Public Image
Being a greener company could result in more costly financial outlays initially as you begin to integrate more eco-friendly ways of working in the workplace. As you find your expenditure increasing, you may be tempted to pass this cost onto your customer in your product price. By all means do this, so long as you are willing to explain your price rise. In a 2015 consumer survey conducted by Nielsen, 66 percent of respondents from a sample of 30,000 stated that they would be willing to pay more for sustainable goods. This means that, as long as you get your green message across, your loyal customer base will be capable of swallowing some of the financial hit. Depending on your public relations strategy, you could also prove to be a hit with the millennial generation who are eager to flex their own eco-credentials muscles. You may be able to enhance and extend your customer reach by tapping into new markets.
Technology
We have already discussed the eco-prowess of online storage solutions when it comes to documentation and filing. However, the appliances we use such as laptops and projectors within the workplace can also eat up energy costing us money. As your technology needs to be replaced ensure you opt for those laptops, computers and gadgetry with the optimum A+ energy rating. Instead of ditching the appliances that have become defunct for your usage, why not think about donating a set of desktops to a school or local charity. The essence of reuse and recycle will enhance your sustainable business vision.
Being green is not easy especially for a budget conscious startups. However, if you place more sustainable concerns at the heart of your business vision and ensure buy-in from your staff team from the beginning, you can end up being more productive, more cost-efficient and more successful.
