Act Green Blog

Archive for the ‘Eco Business Initiatives’ Category

If you are planning to start a small business of your own and at the same time want to do something for your environment, then one of the areas you can look for is the green apparel. Now, more and more people are looking for green clothing which is made up of organic materials like cotton with the use of eco-friendly dyes. Another small business that you can consider starting is installing the solar energy products. As people are looking to use maximum amount of solar energy, you can become a service provider who works in the market to install products that run on solar energy like solar panels, solar geysers, solar cookers and solar air conditioners.

You can also start a small business which teaches other companies about how to make eco-friendly choices in their business. In this way, you will become a company that advises other companies that want to enter into the green market but want a little guidance.

Using promotional products has become a must for all businesses and in today’s world that is more conscious towards its environment, companies have started using eco-friendly promotional products. These products not only contribute towards the promotion of the business but also save the environment from harmful effects of usual promotional products. It has been seen that most of the promotional products, including pens, show pieces and bottle openers are made up of plastic, which is undoubtedly very harmful for the environment. So, you can use PLA which is a plastic like material made from the corn scratch. So, you choose an eco-friendly promotional product for your eco-business.

Apart from that, if you have chosen to give out a promotional product made up of glass, like a mug, then it would be wise to choose the one made up of recycled glass. In this way, you will gain more good will in the market and your customers will really appreciate your distributing the eco-friendly promotional products.

As a company going green with your advertising does not only benefit the environment but also saves you a lot of money. Printing is one of the ways that advertising contributes to the huge amounts of waste produced therefore using recycled paper is a great solution. The recycled paper uses resources that exist and costs so much less compared to other types of paper.

Online advertising is another great way to ensure that the environment is protected since there will be little or no need for making print outs for your advertising and marketing campaigns. This is not only a great way to reach your audience, it also ensures that people do not end up throwing away the print outs after reading them.

Timers should be used on outdoor signs so that they can turn off automatically late into the night. This will lower the electricity costs and conserve energy.

Many ways have been put into place to ensure that the environment is preserved. The use of eco friendly methods and facilities is encouraged. One of these eco-friendly methods is the use of green printing. It is an excellent strategy to reduce carbon footprint on the earth. Many benefits of green printing are:

Eco-friendly Inks

The use of green printing methods employs the use of vegetable-based oils than the traditional printing that utilizes petroleum based ones. The use of green inks makes an easier and healthier method of disposing the inks without harming the environment.

Green Paper

This type of paper is not treated by use of chlorine and is 100% recyclable. This helps preserve our forests.

Clean Power

Since all the printing facilities require power to run, the green printing facilities considers the environment when searching for a power source. This allows others to invest in renewable energy methods reducing impact on the environment.

Hang tags are used by the manufacturers as an overall packaging and branding of their products. The hang tags also let the customer know all about the brand they are purchasing. But most often these hang tags are taken out and thrown away without any further use. These hang tags use up a large amount of paper which becomes useless. Instead the brands should design the hang tags in such a way that it promotes their commitment to nature.

The color of the hang tags may be kept green with a picture of tree or leave to show that you work for the noble cause of protecting the nature.

The hang tags can also be made as business cards so that the customers don’t throw them away but keep them for future need.

Instead of using paper for making the hang tags, one can go for cloth or any natural material designed aesthetically as hang tags.

One can also mention the ways that the product will contribute to conserving nature. For example you can mention that for each product sold, a tree would be planted. This will reflect you good cause and brand commitment to nature.

A person spends a lot of time at his work place. It has been estimated that offices and work places consumes one third of the total energy consumption of a city. It also is a major source of energy wastage. These can overcome if we go green at office also by following some easy methods:

Try to take advantage of the natural light and air. Make it possible to use the most of the sunlight during the day time.

Keep the air-conditioning at a normal temperature instead of lowering the temperature too much.
Computers in the office consume a big chunk of electricity. Set your computer in the hibernate mode. This will save unnecessary wastage of electricity. Before going home don’t forget to switch off the computer as well the power strip where it is connected. The monitors, computers and printers etc should be of energy saving models. This will ensure huge savings at long run.

Being print smarter is also a big way to go green. Print only the necessary data, rest send as email if possible. Use recycled papers for printouts. Use the discarded or used papers to write drafts etc.

The service organizations like utilities, equipment suppliers, telcos, corporations and rental agencies utilize million fleet of vehicles every year each running about 25,000 miles per year. This causes a huge carbon footprint. Becoming eco-friendly is the buzz word and should not be overlooked. The service organizations need to go green at the earliest if not already gone green.

These organizations should try to reduce the fuel consumption. For it repeated visits to one place needs to be avoided. Work and delivery should be well planned. Regular maintenance of the vehicles can reduce the consumption of fuel.

Try to plan better routes for field workers and technicians for their field visits. This will also reduce total mileage by some percentage. Location based services including street level routing can reduce the travel time of the companies.

Let the employees work from home at least once a week. This will boost employees’ morale and save fuel and electricity of the organizations.

It is imperative that one goes green at work to save the nature and live a healthy life. Work and work related activities consume a lot of energy thus making it as one of the most polluting activities. A few small steps can go a long way to save the environment.

The means of travel to reach work play an important role. Instead of using individual cars to commute, go by public transport or the company can provide collective transport mean for its employees.

• Use less of the elevators and walk if the destination is nearby.

• Recycle and reuse the office waste.

• Take the help of nature to light and bright the work place.

• Don’t litter the office waste and if the work place is hospital etc, the waste disposal should be carried out properly.

• Use potted plants inside the office to give a cheerful ambience.

• Go out in the open during the break to get fresh air instead of sitting inside an air conditioned office all the time.

Whenever a patient visits a doctor’s clinic there are lot of prescriptions, medical and personal history and data, many reports etc which over a period of time become a lot cumbersome and complex system. There are instances where the old prescriptions and medical history is lost or damaged which can become critical at the time of any emergency. Sometimes, it become very difficult to find the patient’s file and it may waste few very important minutes. Moreover, every time anyone visits a doctor, his medical file gets updated and this calls for volume of paper. The more paper work is done, the more paper is used which indirectly results in destruction of forests and cutting of trees.

The medical practitioner can use Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system which can store and retrieve the medical data of each patient without much effort. This will also reduce the dependence on paper. EMR can easily be transferred from one place to another if the need arise. For example if the patient is going to another city or hospital to get some surgery one or to receive some treatment, his EMR can be sent electronically within seconds.