101 Ways to Turn Your Business Green

Go Green

• Improve your footprint on the environment
• Become more socially responsible
• Improve your profit margin
• Become more cost-efficient
• Send a positive message to everyone you do business with

You know why. Now, learn how.

The reasons why are clear, but the bigger question is--how? From greening your business practices to implementing tangible changes and more, green experts and business owners show you more than 100 ways to quickly and cost-effectively elevate your business from good to green! /p> Enhance your current business practices and incorporate new, eco-friendly solutions that won't break the bank or disrupt your day-to-day operations.

Learn planet-saving techniques and tricks specific to your trade, and discover unique ways to turn your positive impact on the planet into increased profits!

• Discover 101 practical ways to green your business from the inside out -- no matter what business you're in
• Use expert advice, examples, step-by-step instructions, real timelines and trouble-shooting tips and solutions
• Advance your business in the race to go green with industry-specific ideas and innovations
• Learn how to increase your bottom line and lower your overhead costs by implementing just a few green solutions in your business

• FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

• GOING GREEN 101: BUSINESS BASICS FOR MAKING GREEN PART OF YOUR TEAM

• Green your home, green you life, and yes, green your business! These days, to most consumers and individuals, being environmentally responsible isn't an option--it's a must. In fact, the BBMG Conscious Consumer Report found that nearly nine in ten Americans are more likely to buy from companies that manufacture energy efficient products, promote health and safety benefits, support fair labor and trade practices, and commit to environmentally-friendly practices.

• Rich Mintzer, author of 101 Ways to Turn Your Business Green: A Business Guide to Eco-Friendly Profits ($19.95, Entrepreneur Press, October 2008), comments "More than 80 percent of businesses in the United States are of the small to mid-size business variety, together, these business owners can make a significant difference by embracing green. The key is getting onboard, if for no one else, for their customers or clients, many of whom are becoming environmentally savvy and want to deal with businesses that believe as they do."

• In 101 Ways to Turn Your Business Green, Mintzer offers a broad range of greening solutions from greening business practices to implementing tangible changes and more. He offers small business owners these green basics to get started.

• Decrease Your Carbon Footprint
  

• Energy use, miles driven, consumer behavior, and other factors are brought together and calculated to result in a measure known as carbon footprint. To decrease your company’s carbon footprint you should examine as many aspects of the product lifecycle as possible, and see where you can make changes.

• For example, if you took a lemonade stand and calculated that it takes X amount of petroleum to grow lemons, X amount of petroleum to bring lemons in to the stand, X amount of petroleum to make the cups, X amount of petroleum to generate lighting to work at night and so on, you would be calculating the entire process or lifeline.

• The following companies offer online carbon calculators to help you get started:

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  • EPA, at epa.gov
  
  
  
  • The Nature conservancy at nature.org
  
  
  
  • Carbonfund at carbonfund.org

• Become an Eco-Friendly Shopper
  

• All businesses, including those selling retail or wholesale products and/or services, can support greener shopping. Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) as it's called, means buying products with reduced negative effect on the environment rather than competing products serving the same purpose.

• Mintzer notes, "EPP doesn't mean you should go out of your way to find what you need, but that you can simply order products more selectively."

• For example, most of the paper needs for business can be recycled. This holds true for most office products, so make identifying recycled products part of your shopping routine, much in the way that dieters look at calories and anyone with high cholesterol should look at the trans fat content.

• Look closely at office supplies, cleaning products, equipment, and everything else you typically need to buy for your business and see if there is a greener version.

• Greenseal.org provides information on products that meet the Green seal standards and have certificates.

• These are just a few examples. Mintzer also offers additional basic ideas including starting an office recycling program, auditing your energy consumption, and designing your office in an eco-friendly manner.

• 101 Ways to Turn Your Business Green shows business owners how to enhance their current business practices and create new, eco-friendly solutions to build a better, more environmentally responsible business.

• 101 Ways to Turn Your Business Green has been produced with the use of 100 percent post-consumer FSC-certified recycled paper made from 100 percent old growth forest-free and acid-free components, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based inks.

• Rich Mintzer is an expert in making complicated topics reader-friendly, including business, technology and environmental concerns. He has written more than 45 nonfiction books on a wide range of topics. He has also spent 20 years as a magazine journalist and the past several years writing and producing web content.

Rich Mintzer is an expert in making complicated topics reader-friendly, including business, technology and environmental concerns. He has written more than 45 nonfiction books on a wide range of topics. He has also spent 20 years as a magazine journalist and the past several years writing and producing web content.