Go Green All Year Long – Business Owners

go green business owner

Every year, thousands of business owners host events, donate and give back to mother earth to celebrate earth day. But, what about the other 364 days of the year? What actions do business owners take to go green throughout the year? Being eco-friendly isn’t as hard as most think. And, you don’t have to be a certified b-corporation, to be more sustainable. A few earth-friendly actions goes a long way. Read on and discover how these nine small business owners amazing efforts reduce their eco-footprint all year round.

Go Green: Create a company-wide initiative

“At DaVita, we keep it green all year long with our “12 Months of Green” program. We engage our teammates on one topic per month and empower them to be more sustainable at work and at home with simple tips. For example, in March, we ask teammates to consider reducing their “Carbon Footprint” by taking alternative transportation and eating less meat. In addition to these monthly goals, we have compost and recycling bins on every floor in our headquarters, which also happens to be a certified LEED Gold building.

“We also celebrate Earth Day the entire month of April across our global village. In 2014, we created Earth Day Service Days, encouraging teammates to have earth-friendly service projects. Since 2014, teammates have contributed 39,000 volunteer hours to cleaning up beaches, planting trees and building community gardens. We anticipate 2019 to be our biggest and most impactful year yet.”— Casey Stock, LEED AP O+M and Sustainability Manager, DaVita

Go Green: Sustainability Conscience Business Owner

“Business sustainability practices are inherent in our company culture. We strive each day to reduce the company’s negative impact on the triple bottom line – people, planet, and profit. Whether it’s volunteering on Earth Day or diverting waste from the local landfill via recycling and composting efforts, we do it all. Thanks to Xcel Energy’s wind source program, we’re 100% powered by renewable wind energy. Also, we provide all employees with an Eco Pass to encourage the use of public transportation.” — Kym Wootton, VP of Operations, E Source

Go Green: No driving policy and remote work

“My web design firm is in central Oxford. It was easy to implement a do not drive policy. So all of our employees ride a bike to work, some walk, (if it’s raining they might take a bus). No one drives a car to work.” — Jean H. Paldan, Founder & CEO, Rare Form New Media

“We love to socialize and meet at our friendly office, but we are also welcomed to work from home once per week. So, that’s one day times the number of all our employees per week less traveling.”— Kuba Koziej, CEO & Co-Founder, Zety

Just because you have a car and you can literally go anywhere you want, doesn’t mean you should. Fast Company reports that more people in cities are communicating longer distances from where they work. What’s their reason? Well, since all the jobs are moving, so must they. Although the situation is understandable, it’s not eco-friendly. As a business owner, find out if your employees live close to work and encourage them walk, bike, or even take public transport, do it!

Go Green: Compostable trash cans

“We installed a five-gallon mini compostable garbage can into our break room. Coffee grinds, unwanted or old food, tea bags, and food waste such as banana peels mostly avoid the regular garbage can and end up in the compostable garbage can. Also, the kitchen waste tremendously benefits the garden’s soil in all respects. It’s free, it decreases the garbage going to the landfill, and it gives a little more awareness to the employees of the possibilities.” — Anthony Smith, Owner, Nursery Enterprises

Go Green: Solar panels

“Starting in 2017, we changed how we operate. OxygenPlus Medical Inc now operates 100% off of sunshine. We are fully solar powered. In the summer months, our 125 solar panel array makes approximately 225 kilowatts of power per day. Also, we source all our shipping boxes locally and they are 40% recycled material and adopted driving Battery-Electric Cars, and using Battery-Electric Forklifts, which are charged off of the solar array at our location.”— Jeff Moriarty, Marketing Manager, OxygenPlus Medical Inc.

Solar panels can be great for the environment and for your business, depending on business location. If you live in Seattle, Washington where it’s mostly cloudy/rainy all year long, solar panels would be a waste. And, it’s not a cheap investment either. Many business owners may not want to invest in solar panels due to its high pricing. According to a 2019 report from Energy Sage, solar panels have a national average cost of $3.05/watt. An average solar panel system would cost $12,810 after tax credits. Use Google’s solar savings estimator to learn how much you can save on your electric bill with rooftop solar.

Go Green: Outsource in the U.S.

“Our business stays eco-friendly by manufacturing our products in the United States. This allows us to cut out the carbon emissions associated with shipping overseas. Not to mention, factories outside the U.S. tend to see less government regulation in terms of environmental impact. Keeping our manufacturing close means adhering to the Clean Air Act –– something we care a lot about!”— Donna Chambers, Founder & CEO,SensaCalm

Go Green: Social Responsibility

“Power is a major part of providing cloud services. We have to keep our data center infrastructure running all the time. We added efficiency in cooling the data center by installing an evaporative cooling system. This is an effort to affect social change positively. We’re grateful to be a part of that.”— Adnan Raja, Vice President of Marketing,Atlantic.Net

Go Green: Environmentally safe pest control

“We go green with integrated pest management, a method that employs a minimal use of chemicals to control pests. While we can easily control pests by applying a thick layer of chemicals around a property, that’s simply not the mission of our company. We are licensed as reduced-impact providers by the state of Texas, as well as NPMA GreenPro certified, and hold special certifications that allow us to apply low-impact, green chemicals that other companies are not certified to use.” — Steve Durham, President, EnviroCon Termite & Pest

Deborah Sweeney

Deborah Sweeney is an advocate for protecting personal and business assets for business owners and entrepreneurs. With extensive experience in the field of corporate and intellectual property law, Deborah provides insightful commentary on the benefits of incorporation and trademark registration.

Education: Deborah received her Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degrees from Pepperdine University, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of West Los Angeles and San Fernando School of Law in corporate and intellectual property law.

Experience: After becoming a partner at LA-based law firm, Michel & Robinson, she became an in-house attorney for MyCorporation, formerly a division in Intuit. She took the company private in 2009 and after 10 years of entrepreneurship sold the company to Deluxe Corporation. Deborah is also well-recognized for her written work online as a contributing writer with some of the top business and entrepreneurial blogging sites including Forbes, Business Insider, SCORE, and Fox Business, among others.

Fun facts/Other pursuits: Originally from Southern California, Deborah enjoys spending time with her husband and two sons, Benjamin and Christopher, and practicing Pilates. Deborah believes in the importance of family and credits the entrepreneurial business model for giving her the flexibility to enjoy both a career and motherhood. Deborah, and MyCorporation, have previously been honored by the San Fernando Valley Business Journal’s List of the Valley’s Largest Women-Owned Businesses in 2012. MyCorporation received the Stevie Award for Best Women-Owned Business in 2011.

Next FICA Tax Savings for Small Business Owners »

Previous « Entrepreneur Advice From Expert Business Owners

View Comments

Steve Hoffman says:

5 years ago at 3:09 AM

Barron-Gafford and the team are now working with the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab to assess how well an agrivoltaics approach can work in other regions of the country and how regional policies can promote adoption of novel approaches to solve these pervasive problems.