I don’t believe that we’ll be in a recession forever. I believe that followed by these lows, will be higher highs – hopefully built on reality and not greed.
Until then, though, all of us need to innovate our biz-strategies to account for the current gloomy economic climate. Money is tight, oil is still expensive and inflation is everywhere.
If you want to make a difference to the planet, many of your green strategies may seem expensive (eg. Sustainable produce or promotional ingredients). Don’t give up your green-ness. Adapt it to hard times.
When it comes to eco-friendliness, I always think about the four R’s: Replace the unsustainable with sustainable, Reuse whenever possible, Reduce the use of unsustainable items and finally Recycle that which is left (especially your e-waste).
If you focus on reuse and reductions, you are being green an likely saving money. That’s the great news. When Interface (a modular carpet company) went after waste to reduce its carbon footprint, it saved three hundred million bucks in the first few years. You can save money too with your green recession strategy. Here are a few ways I’m doing it:
1. Telecommuting one day a week, which saves gas and eating lunch out.
2. Replacing three face to face meetings this month with carefully organized conference calls.
3. Ceating a PDF brochure to email prospects, to replce the printed and mailed ones I’ve been sending.
4. Producing an iTunes version of my Email training product. This reduces the stuff I need to produce and mail.
5. Moving strictly to ground shipping, except in special circumstances. This is for FEDEX as well as USPS. Ground shipping, as Aveda learned, is much friendlier to the environment than air mail.
6. Reusing all paper that’s only printed on one side (for internal use, which is most of it for me).
Each one of the innovations saves the planet and saves me money. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
What recession friendly green strategies do you have? Post in comments.
