Eco-friendly. It’s such a buzz word in the world of business these days. But the truth is, many people talk the talk but don’t really walk the walk – simply because they’re don’t know how to get started.

If this sounds like you, take a minute to read this post. With the help of sponsor CityDocs, I’ve pulled together 10 simple ways your enterprise can become a more eco-friendly company.

1) Switch to a Paper Free Office

Just think for a second about the amount of work that goes into making one single piece of paper. The pollution caused by logging. The fumes from factories. The toll that transportation takes on the atmosphere. So, why not do your bit to help reduce the reliance on paper, by switching to a paper-free office? There are many computer programs and systems that can help, plus the Cloud now provides invaluable backup for vital documents.

Don’t Miss: 5 Ways to Reduce Waste Office Paper

2) Outsource Your Printing

Even if you go paperless, you may still need some office printing done for annual reports, event planning, and other special documents. Why not outsource the process to an external company that has the machines capable of getting the job done with minimum waste? Working with a professional printer could also potentially save energy, depending on the size of the job.  Remember to print on both sides of a sheet of paper; print on recycled paper; avoid wasting extra sheets of paper within the job; and printing only the copies you need.

3) Encourage Cycling, Mass Transit, Carpooling, and Telework

Shrink your company’s carbon footprint by encouraging employees to get to work someway other than by their own individual vehicles. Can employees car pool? Use the bus or subway system? Why not encourage staff members to pick up a bike instead? You could even introduce a company scheme whereby you help staff members purchase their bikes, or set up some company accounts so employees can take advantage of local bike-sharing solutions. Of course, letting employees work from home a couple of days a week will also significantly cut down on the amount of oil and gas they need for transportation.

This Can Help: 5 Ways to Cut Costs by Shrinking Your Carbon Footprint

4) Install Recycling Bins

Every business, even the most eco-conscious, will have piles of rubbish to dispose of every day. Most of this rubbish will simply go into a bin, and then get taken away in one swirled mess, including food, paper, cans and plastic. If you install specific recycling bins for separate trash items, though, you’ll be amazed by how many staff members use them. At the very least separate office paper from other trash. If possible, arrange for food waste to be picked up and composted by a community composting program.

5) Create a Company Green Purchasing Club

Especially during the summer growing season, many farmers offer buying clubs to employers to encourage employees to buy locally grown organic food. The farmers will take orders in advance and then deliver the food in bags and boxes to the office so employees can easily take them home.

6) Change Those Lightbulbs!

The trouble with traditional lightbulbs is that they consume a lot of energy and don’t last very long, so you have to keep replacing them. Replace them with high-performance compact fluorescents or even better LEDs. They’ll save significantly more energy and money, and it will be years before you have to replace them.

Good Tips Here: How to Pick the Best Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs

7) Green Web Hosting

Web hosting is an area you probably don’t associate with environmental damage, however the amount of energy used by hosting companies is astronomical! Green web hosting companies use renewable energy and carbon offsets to minimize energy use, while still being competitively priced.

8) Share Office Space or Run a Virtual Office

Do you need your own physical office space and all the resources required to maintain it? Or can you share space with a like-minded company? Perhaps you don’t need office space at all, but can run a virtual operation.

9) Use Environmentally Friendly Cleansers

What do you use to keep your office clean and tidy? Most commercial cleansers rely on some combination of chemicals that can actually make people quite sick – from headaches and dizziness to nausea and worse. Replace conventional products with those that are fragrance-free and non-toxic. Most surfaces can be cleaned with warm water and simple, biodegradable, fragrance-free liquid soap.

Try Green Spring Cleaning with Plant-Based Cleansers

10) Educate Others

While your business might be environmentally friendly, the homes of many staff members probably aren’t. Try to spread your enthusiasm by educating staff members about the small things they can do. This won’t impact your business directly, but it will certainly help the world as a whole!

Do you have any tips yourself to be a more ethical company? Let us know in the comments.

The post 10 Ways to Become an Eco Friendly Company appeared first on Big Green Purse.

* Food and soda cans – I recycle glass, metal and plastic containers in my community’s curbside recycling program. But I also use a Soda Stream water spritzer so I almost never buy bottled drinks anymore. I spritz water myself, then add various flavorings and sweeteners depending on what I want to drink. I’m saving a lot of money doing this, too.

* Beer and wine bottles – I generally buy glass rather than cans or plastic bottles. If I’m having a party, I buy larger bottles of wine, which use less material per serving than regular-sized bottles.

* Plastic milk jugs – I can buy milk in glass bottles at my local food coop (though they cost about $2 a gallon more than milk in plastic jugs).

* Plastic laundry jugs (when I use liquid detergent) – I generally prefer to use powdered detergent in cardboard boxes, which are better to recycle than plastic jugs. I also use concentrated detergent, so I use less per load of laundry, and extend the life of the package.

* Clothes – I recycle old socks and t-shirts into cleaning rags. I donate most of my used clothes to the local thrift shop or the neighborhood church.

 * Electronics – I recycle old monitors, computers, fax machines, chargers, phones, and pretty much anything else with a cord on it, taking most of it to Best Buy or Staples, which accept almost any reasonably-sized electronics at no charge. I even recycled my TV!

* Lightbulbs – I can now recycle my light bulbs at my city’s community waste facility. Some stores, like Ikea and Home Depot, also accept them.

* Paper (newspapers, junk mail, magazines) – All of my paper goods can be recycled curbside, but the trick is to reduce the amount of paper coming into my house in the first place. I read most newspapers and magazines online, and have used Catalog Choice to reduce the number of unwanted magazines and catalogs I receive.

* Plastic bags – I use reusable cloth bags instead of plastic bags, but if I have excess bags, I recycle them at my grocery store.

* Toys – I have given my kids’ used toys to neighborhood kids or donated them to the local thrift store.

* Furniture – I have sold unwanted furniture through my neighborhood list-serv, or simply given it away to others who can use it. EBay.com, CraigsList.com and FreeCycle.org are also great ways to unload sofas, chairs, lamps, and dining sets you no longer want or need.

 * Appliances – The easiest appliance to recycle in my neighborhood is actually my refrigerator. Here’s how I not only recycled my old refrigerator, but received $200 when I did it.

* Food – The ultimate way to recycle food is to compost it. I have a barrel composter in my backyard that helps me turn fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, and other non-meat or dairy waste into a rich fertilizer I can put on my garden.

REDUCE UNWANTED CATALOGS IN THE FIRST PLACE

This year, America Recycles Day has teamed up with Catalog Choice to help consumers reduce the number of unwanted catalogs they receive in the mail. It’s free and quick to sign up, and much easier than calling individual companies to try to get your name off their list.

What do you recycle? Please let us know!

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The post Today is America Recycles Day. What Are You Recycling? appeared first on Big Green Purse.

   Enter RecycleBank, an innovative program that boosts community recycling rates by rewarding people for recycling as much as they can.

Here’s how it works:

RecycleBank arranges with a municipal government or the company that hauls its trash to encourage citizens to recycle more and to actually monitor how much of their trash they’re recycling. Participants receive a large trash container that’s embedded with a computer chip so that the sanitation workers  picking up a participant’s recycled goods can weigh, measure and scan each container before emptying it. The scanned data is stored in the participant’s account. For every pound recycled, the participant earns 2.5 RecycleBank points.

That’s where the rewards come in. RecycleBank points can be redeemed against new consumer purchases from a variety of local and national sponsors, including Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Target, as well as neighborhood restaurants and other businesses. But there’s another, and perhaps more important, reward: participants can also see what the environmental benefit of their individual recycling amounts to in terms of oil and trees saved. Anyone asking, “Does what I recycle really make a difference?” will get a strong “YES!!” every time they put their container of recyclables out for pick up.

Ideally, such a program would also encourage less consumption, whether products can be recycled or not. And hopefully, participants will use their rewards to favor the greenest products and services available.

For the moment, RecycleBank’s Monique Hartl says the company’s goal is to raise recycling rates in communities nationwide. With 300,000 households already participating, they’re well on their way.

Thumbs UP, RecycleBank!

The post Recycling your bottles and cans? Get a reward from RecycleBank appeared first on Big Green Purse.