These days every business should strive to be as green and efficient as possible. That means making sure that you don’t create any waste, that you are as efficient as you can be, and that your business model is generally eco-friendly to begin with.
For entrepreneurs and start-ups selling products, this is no different. Going green will at once help you to reduce your overheads and save money and help you to create a clean image that will help you sell more.
Top Tips for Going Green
Efficient Design:
The first and easiest way to reduce waste with your product is to look into the way you design it and whether or not that has been done in the most efficient way. Anything unnecessary or superfluous in your design will cost you more in overhead expenses and means that more material and energy is being used to make it. Is there a chance that you could hollow out areas of your product? Could one element of your product be made from a more recyclable material without affecting the overall quality? Or could you accomplish the same impression and function if you removed a particular appendage? Often, this will help result in a more elegant and beautiful product too, as minimalism is currently in vogue. Bear in mind though that if your design is too bare bones, it will end up being less desirable. There’s a difference between efficient and ‘cheap’.
Manufacturing:
The manufacturing methods you choose will also help you to create products that are either more or less efficient. This is one reason that digital manufacturing is so popular these days – it allows for precise operations that result in less wasted material.
Packaging:
This is the area where a lot of businesses will waste energy unnecessarily. If a tiny pen holder comes in a box that looks big enough to fit a computer and with an instruction manual that has ten blank pages at the back, then that’s all wasted money and wasted material. Again, you should make sure that your packaging is well designed and attractive to give your product that ‘want’ factor, but take on board the concept that less may be more. If you want to go even further, you can look into using recycled materials.
Operations:
It’s not just your product itself that will potentially waste energy, but also the running of your business and your policies. Of course, if your business has an office, the amount of light you use and the amount of heating will impact on your carbon footprint. If you travel to conduct meetings, this can also have an effect. Again, it’s a matter of deciding how far you want to go. Investing in a good video conferencing setup can save you a lot of time, money and energy compared with travelling and having to go everywhere in person.
Remember to think about the companies that you opt to work with. Do they have efficiency on their agenda? What’s their reputation? And as a result, are they the kind of people you want associated with your business?
