How to make your Business “Green”

In today’s busy marketplace, going green can have more impact than ever before, and not just environmentally. As markets and niches are becoming more diluted with competition, going green can help small businesses stand out from the crowd. If you don’t have the capital or you aren’t the owner of the business – going green doesn’t necessarily have to be a costly investment.

As a start, consider making these easy-to-do changes:

– Replace light bulbs with energy efficient ones.
– If it’s comfortable outside and appropriate, let the wind be the air conditioner
– Choose to clean with greener products, as an alternative to harsh chemicals
– Re-claim furniture and fixtures, a little TLC can go a long way!
– Consider placing plants around the business, or making a “living wall”
– Use recycled material for bags and receipts and/or make them optional
– Buy energy efficient equipment
– Follow the rule of – turn it down, turn it off.
– Cut extra packaging out

Of course, this is just a start in the world of going “green” and if you have a little more to invest, consider:

– Solar powered products
– Installing a geothermal heating and cooling system in place of traditional heating and cooling systems

Great Benefits to Geothermal
Clearly, geothermal energy is becoming one of the hottest ways to stay cool this summer. Other than the energy cost reduction, most people don’t think through the other benefits to this flexible heating and cooling system. Here are three other benefits that you may want to consider if you are interested in getting geothermal for your home or office. The point of it all is that you need a smart office. This is probably more effective than getting your home “smart”.

Geothermal offers amazing tax benefits. The cost of putting any new HVAC system – whether traditional or geothermal – can be a huge expense. With geothermal systems, amazing tax credits you can get of up to 30% can make it a much easier decision. Check with your local utility provider to see if they offer any additional benefits to geothermal customers.

Geothermal offers flexibility. In fact, geothermal systems are designed to make sure that your home or office is as comfortable as you’d like them to be. Complete with dehumidifiers, air purification systems and the ability to create zones of cooler and warmer temperatures, geothermal systems offer options that traditional systems simply can’t match.

Geothermal is more than just traditional home heating. Did you know that geothermal can even be structured to offer radiant floor heating and supplementary hot water?  Having the option to add these services just can’t be matched by a traditional system. Read also this post on how roof gardens can help you make your office more “green”. 

Sure, decreased utility costs are one of the most well-known benefits of using geothermal.  But, there is more to geothermal than just that. With the ability to take large tax credits, a flexible layout with the ability to include radiant flooring and zoning options, geothermal does much more than lower your utility costs.

LED Lights Offer Low Energy Use
One of the first steps that people take when trying to be more energy efficient is to turn off lights when they are no longer in the room. What if new technologies could make that idea a thing of the past? While people have used incandescent lights for indoor, outdoor and commercial use for decades, having LED lights on the market is changing the way that people and businesses think of their lighting needs.

New LED lights (many of them developed in the new Green Market China) represent a tectonic shift in decreasing energy usage and lighting. Lighting uses up more energy than most people realize. To light up businesses and homes around the world accounts for about 20% of the power consumption across the globe. Startling, isn’t it? The good news is that LED technology can offer the same level of lighting at tremendous energy savings. LED lighting can decrease energy cost by about 50% to 70% when compared with traditional lighting sources across the world. When used in outdoor settings, LED lights last longer, don’t have to have bulbs changed or lenses cleaned, which saves in maintenance and parts. Additionally, if you are trying to light those out-of-the-way places in your yard, LED lights can provide longer runs and better security for your home.

Whether you need lighting for your home, office or landscaping, LED lighting offers options that will make you feel good about using this new technology. Clearly, the future for LED lighting is bright. Requiring just a fraction of the energy in combination with less maintenance and more flexibility, LED lighting may quickly replace incandescent lighting.