Tag: Efficient energy use

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What benefits does sustainability hold for your business?

English: Energy efficient light fixture locate...
Energy efficient light fixture  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sustainable products, practices and processes are growing in the marketplace but what benefits are there for smaller businesses that haven’t yet taken advantage of the green movement?

Small-scale farmers and food producers are now supplying more than 30 local food markets in the country. Entrepreneurs are innovating products from natural pesticides and eco-friendly detergents to water purification devices, personal care products, organically produced cosmetics and energy efficient solutions.

More innovations are in the making with products offering better performance than their “brown” predecessors. Green products work better, are healthier, less toxic, taste better and save time and money. Gone are the slow-moving health foods made by hippies, lentil heads and tree huggers that gather dust on supermarket and health food store shelves. Now we are seeing low-flow toilets, energy-efficient windows, eco-friendly lawns and gardens, furniture made with sustainable materials, hi-efficiency solar panels, environmentally-friendly carpets and water-saving showerheads. Continue reading “What benefits does sustainability hold for your business?”

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Will energy costs break your business?

I just got back from holiday when I saw something wrong in my local shopping centre. There it was: another empty shop. A business that had run smack into the wall. It was the video shop. Now, video stores have been under threat for a number of years. A whole chain went under administration in the UK recently (528 stores employing 4,000 people). But I’m not here to talk about the reasons why video shops are collapsing (hint: the rise of e-commerce) and retail chains going under (50 folded last year in the UK alone).

Ever-rocketing energy costs didn’t force that business to close. But not caring about it may have been just one of the many indicators of laxness in the business. For example, I never once saw the owner ever in his store. Says something, doesn’t it? Continue reading “Will energy costs break your business?”