Green Business: Turn Your Bottom Line Black

Our family business makes couture women's apparel and art. We are crazy; we started in the midst of a recession. In an effort to remain competitive, it makes dollars and sense to conform to green business practices.

I've found it is the little things that add up to waste, hurt the environment and ruin our bottom line. It was the unplanned trips to the office supply store, going out buy stamps, or the gas it took to get to a meeting. It may not have been the original intent of our company, but the solution was logical, 'Go Green'.

As a 'Green Company' bill paying, banking, purchases, and virtual meetings are performed via the internet. The internet saves time, conserves fossil fuels, physical energy and money. With the purchases being made online, often from local vendors/cooperatives, the cost of delivery and shipments are reduced, as well as our carbon footprint. Our website will soon launch allowing us to leap from direct sales to online, a greener and more economical alternative.

Office equipment is kept to a minimum. When not in use equipment is kept on "kill switches" to save energy. When purchased, each piece of office equipment was researched for energy savings; the final selling point for the one item was 10% of the cost was donated to a good cause. The outdated equipment was donated to a facility that refurbishes and donates them to the under privileged people in our country. This is not only a green practice but scores a tax break; tax breaks help in this economy.

Our office is small. Keeping clutter down is the key to the prevention of lost items, duplication of purchases and to keeping my sanity. I keep the majority of records on the computer. Instead of a bulky filing cabinet and tons of paper, important items are kept on my computer. Only essential items are kept on paper. As soon as these are scanned, they are whisked away to a secure fire proof location.

My office is as paperless as possible. Any paper that comes in is fair game to be recycled. Copies are often made on backsides of old mail. Mail may get torn into pieces, stapled together and formed into notepads. I once saw office envelopes being turned inside out and reused by businesses; they were being sold on Etsy. So instead of buying them, I make them. To the envelopes I add the following inscription which reads, "We are a 'Green Company'; we attempt to reuse everything we can. It is good for the planet."

Be it shawls, gloves, purses or collages, the items I design are often manufactured with post-consumer or recycled materials. Much of my yarn is not only recycled material but was made into yarn by women in the third world or those in the disabled community. Purchased through fair trade, the handmade yarns are higher quality than that made by machine. This yields high end products.

Our 'green focus' is a selling point for many of our customers. Later, we hope to become a green certified company. Reduce, reuse, and recycle are not meaningless words in our world of couture clothing and art. It is the difference between being in the red or in the black at year's end.