How To Build A Sustainable Small Business?

The initiative of going ‘green’ is always one of the keys to success for running a company.

As we can see many of the companies are genuinely concerned about the impact of their businesses actions to the environment because by putting a lot of ‘green’ efforts helps to the organization to stand out in the market. Besides that, small businesses also see sustainability is an essential part for a company’s long term-success. On top of that, the rapid growth of consumer interest in sustainability has become one of the motivations for small businesses to involved their works in the community.

Here is a list of tips for building a sustainable small business.

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1. Solid business plan

It is important to have a solid business plan before you can run a sustainable business because you can use your plan to integrate the changes you can make in your company to improve your success in sustainability. You should have a clear understanding on your company’s environmental philosophies including the means of ‘sustainability’.

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2. Sweat the small stuff

Do you know you can make a difference on your company’s carbon footprint via daily rituals such as printing and shipping? Small changes create big impact to your company as well as the environment. Further, small changes such as garbage-free lunch room are easy to implement and is likely to be supported by employees too!

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3.Go paperless

There are tons of waste produced by many companies everyday. Always remember that the key of going paperless is to start lite today. So, a company should seek for the opportunities to run green business even small opportunities. For instance provide paperless transaction such as e-billing, where everything is done online and record statement can be viewed as well as can be saved on the computer without need to print it out. 

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4. Stay current and educate

Staying current on your businesses’ environmental mandate is a part of successful sustainable small business. Your customers might not have time to do reseach on what your company is doing. So, it is very important that you do your best to update your customers about your company works and latest developments in corporate sustainability. By sharing company works and new research knowledge with your customers,do actually help in building trust relationship between the company and customers.

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  5. Environmentally friendly team

Hire a team of members who share the company vision because it is much easier for them to put sustainability efforts into place if they have well knowledge on ‘green’ philosophy. Moreover, they will be very helpful on finding ways, ideas and solutions to improve the company’s works if they have been committed in long term green philosophy in the past.

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6. Be a leader

Be a leader in movement once you have identified the environmental cases that your business will support. Be a leader should not only creates initiatives to build awareness, potential and solutions but as well as donate your time and support your employees in doing the same thing. It is always good to share your profits with environmentally-related causes by being an active leader to seek for working opportunities and involved in various environmental campaigns or events.

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7. Don’t be a hypocrite

You must lead by example if you are asking the public to live a healthy, environmentally friendly life. It is important to show your employees and customers that you practice what you preach.

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8. Support and collaborate

Look for people who share the same motivations as you, collaborate with them to seek for advice and support their endeavours. They can be anyone with business minded, such as individuals and organization.  Collaborate business helps two or more organizations to work together under one vision to strengthen business strategies as well as to improve revenue.

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9. Regulate

 “Green Washing” has become a common practice for many business companies nowadays however many organizations have jumped on the bandwagon while having no true sustainability efforts as part of their businesses. This is due to the very limited and poor regulations surrounding environmentally focused companies.  Besides that, there are some very legitimate private organizations that have formed to eliminate ‘green washing’. Therefore, seek out these entities that will accredit, regulate and provide seals of approval for truly sustainable companies.

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10. Inspire

 Inspire existing and potential clients to live a healthier, more environmentally friendly life by talking about the benefits of working with your company. Stay positive, keep negativity at bay and keep the environmentally sustainable business model forward.

Source: Top 10 tips for building a sustainable small business by The Globe and Mail.

Related: Tips to improve SMEs sustainable business practices , 9 reasons you should convert to online business, 5 tips to make online selling easy and efficient