Earth Day: 9 Start-Up Business Tips
April 22, 2007
Today is a great day to share some tips on using some green strategies to save the little green pieces of paper in your wallet (multicolored pieces for our international readers). It isn’t 1988 anymore and Kermit the Frog would be happy to know that it is no longer hard being green. Our society is opening a lot of doors to green and sustainable solutions for our personal and business lives. Here is a short list of tips for how you can use earth friendly solutions to save money as you create your start-ups.
Upgrade to LCD: Obviously these wouldn’t be money saving techniques if the first thing I’m asking you to do is spend money, but if you find yourself in the market to upgrade your CRT monitors… go LCD. Prices are getting pretty low these days and an LCD uses about half of the power a CRT does. Lower power usage means a lower power bill.
Reuse Your Printed Mistakes: I recently printed 40 two-page press releases only to realize I had a spelling error in the title of my release. Since the press release was only printed on one side of the paper, I folded all the sheet in half and tore them into two. I then stapled about 10 sheets together giving me great little scratch paper bundles for scribbling numbers on at my desk or for throwing in my bag to scratch ideas on when out and about. If you use all your printed mistakes and the junk mail you get in this method you’ll never have to by scratch notepads ever again.
Lower the Brightness: Unless you’re working on a multimedia project where you need to match exact color samples or where color calibration needs to be precise, drop the brightness of your monitor by 10-20%. You probably won’t notice a huge difference and your screen will still be easy to work on, but turning the brightness down 10% uses 20% less power.
Power Down the Mothership: When you’re finishing your work for the day turn your computers off. We often get in the habit of leaving our computers on all the time, but desktop computers use a ton of energy. Also, having to turn you computer off at the end of the day will help you close out the work that you were doing and organizing what you still need to do the next day.
Wash Your Dishes: I know a lot of young start-up guys who don’t bother with dishes because they feel like they never have the time in the day to wash dishes… so they just buy paper plates and plastic cups. This is huge waste of resources for the planet and your wallet. I suggest buying at least one great bowl. Bowls can be used for just about any meal and If you think it is a matter of not having time to wash a bowl… take into account the time you have to work to make the money to afford buying disposable cups and plates.
Bottled Water: Drinking bottled water at home or the office is a waste of money and one of our most important natural resources. Buy a Brita filter and keep it in your fridge or install a water filter onto your tap. Most major US cities have higher quality standards on tap water than the bottled spring water companies.
Taking Your Bills & Payments Online: Ask you bills and bank to send you e-statements only. This saves the environment more than it saves your money, but it is still something you should do. Not only does it reduce paper waste, but it sends less mail through the postal system using less fuel. Also, move all your bill pays to online so you save the $.39 cents to mail each check in.
Lease a Hybrid: If you’re in the market for a new car, look at some of the great options for Hybrid Vehicles. Not only will you save lots of cash at the gas pumps, you’ll also save money on maintenance. Some states even give tax credits for people who buy hybrid vehicles. (Remember to keep track of your mileage for business use as it can be written off at tax time.)
Follow the Light… and Replace Them: Compact fluorescent bulbs use at least 2/3 less energy than standard incandescent bulbs to provide the same amount of light, and last up to 10 times longer. Replace the bulbs in your house and office to save money in the long run.
Happy Earth Day.
11 Comments
Kevin said on April 22, 2007...
Glad to see some green tips from you guys!
CFLs are the easiest fix.
Online bill pay saves 39 cents + the cost of the envelope.
Wes Bos said on April 22, 2007...
In the last three years, my desktop has probably only been off for a few days total. I should really power it down but those torrents take forever!
Travis said on April 22, 2007...
I tend to leave my desktop on for at least 18 hours a day, even when I’m out. Definitely should shut down more often.
Ross from Thrive said on April 22, 2007...
It would be interesting to see the difference in consumption between a laptop and a desktop. I use the might macbook pro for everything these days, and it goes to sleep instead of shutting down - but it has a lot of gear inside. Is there much difference?
Adnan said on April 22, 2007...
Unfortunately, my desktop is also on 24/7. I’m definitely gonna try shifting my butt and reaching for the power button cos I wanna know how much money my family is actually wasting.
And for the rest, I can only say that I have an LCD and do payments online - I need to become a green monster!
Elsie said on April 22, 2007...
Great tips. I also use the backs of my printed mistakes to print drafts of projects and for printing pdf files from the internet for my own use.
I also switch off my monitor at night to save more energy. It also ensures that the monitor will have a longer life.
kellypea said on April 22, 2007...
Okay. Have a bunch of these covered. Would have all of them covered, but am the sole female in a household of males- all of whom are pleasant, but not wholly cognizant of Earth or its needs. I wash their dishes, but will they? Uhhhhh……Nope. And give up the Beemer? Nope again. I’ll keep trying, but, come on. Get more females involved in this endeavor. Okay? Or Earth is toast.
Sebastian Hughes said on April 22, 2007...
Very nice article there Darius. I always reuse paper and I just use water from the tap. Also I agress with Wes Bos, torrents do take forEVER.
Jonathan-C. Phillips said on April 22, 2007...
My next car will definitely be a hybrid! Already saving money for it, since i replaced all the lightblubs and am pretty environment conscious, you can easily save a couple hundreds, even thousands per year applying those tips
Will said on April 22, 2007...
A good article on the whole, I dugg it, but I disagree with the point about tap water. Filters only take out some of the chemicals and heavy metals that are put into tap water, and you will spend just as much if not more on the filter equipment + new filters every few weeks + water bill. If you buy a decent brand of water you can be sure its a million times better than tap. Even better, go to your local spring like me and get a free barrel of it when you want.
Darius said on April 22, 2007...
Will, Depending on where you live your tap water undergoes more tests than bottled water companies. Tap water + good water filter is more than enough to give you healthy safe water.
For most people “decent brand” water comes from across the country… or world. Why we ship water from springs in Fiji when we have clean healthy water in our community is mind “bottling.”
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