The global economic crisis hasn’t made business any easier and going green hasn’t gotten any cheaper. Yet, the ramifications for not greening our planet aren’t going to be any less costly.
So here are a few business owners who have gone “all the way” when platinum LEED certification (the status given to denote Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), isn’t an immediate option.
Ultimately, the best way to be entrepreneurially responsible is to take your business online. Why not make up for years of global social irresponsibility by simply booting up your computer to conduct business? (So long as you completely shut down your computer, however, at the end of the day.)
• Hold Daily, Weekly, Local Meetings Online And Over the Phone
Chances are you get more done and more efficiently this way anyway. Use a web conferencing tool like iLinc and take your meetings online. “Even when I have meetings around town I take it online,” says John Jantsch founder of Duct Tape Marketing. “Instead of jumping in my car, I hold online meetings and webinars. Then everyone attending saves on time and gas whether it’s by car or flight.” Apply that same thinking to vendors, too. Using local businesses for your goods and services and ordering online or over the phone reduces the environments impact gas and shipping causes as well as lowers costs.
Model and author, Summer Rayne Oakes projected her carbon footprint for the next six months because she knew she would be traveling more than usual to promote her book Style, Naturally. So she tried to cluster her trips. “I am aware of what I am expending. I figured out its about 17 tons of carbon,” she said. So she is heading to Mozambique for a few months to offset the damage by joining a reforestation project. “I need to plant about 126 trees,” she says.