Many businesses have their own vehicle fleets to ship items or carry out business activities. Such businesses have a significant carbon footprint from transportation that can be reduced by taking simple and big steps towards reducing fuel consumption. In the long-run, most of these steps can accrue significant savings to businesses with vehicle fleets. Here we provide five tips your business can take to green its fleet.

1) Purchase hybrid or plug-in vehicles. Hybrid vehicles run on a combination of gasoline and electricity, while plug-in vehicles run entirely on electricity, increasing energy efficiency substantially. These options can help reduce fuel consumption drastically, saving money in the long term.

2) Run trucks on biodiesel. Diesel engines are becoming increasingly more efficient for trucks than gasoline engines. The newest models are polluting far less. In addition, these engines can run on biodiesel, an increasingly popular fuel that can substantially reduce emissions. Whenever possible, try running your trucks on biodiesel.

3) Conduct regular maintenance. To ensure that your car is burning fuel efficiently, make sure you give it a tune-up regularly (including keeping tires filled up well). This will help keep the engine running smoothly. In addition, every time you change an essential liquid, like motor oil, make sure you discard of it appropriately.

4) Opt for car-sharing program. If your business’ use is sparse and you’re in a metropolitan area, consider opting for a car-sharing program instead. This will allow you to drop the cost of keeping an unused vehicle and also save substantially on carbon emissions. Examples are ZipCar and WeCar.

5) Avoid unnecessary rides. If your destination is reachable using public transportation, encourage the use of public transportation instead. Only keep vehicle use for destinations out of bounds by public transport.

Pressured by board members to set a good example during ‘Green Week’, Jack is faced with finding a way to cut energy consumption. I guess this is what people are referring to when they say don’t believe everything you hear on TV.

Check out this hilarious clip from the hit NBC show 30 Rock:

Knowing your office carbon footprint is an important part of moving towards a greener and more efficient business operation. Calculating your footprint can be a perfect first step in determining baselines for conservation and emission reduction initiatives. It also gives you an excellent tool for tracking the progress of conservation efforts, comparing your carbon footprint with similar businesses, and motivating employees to participate in conservation campaigns.

Green Irene provides an online office carbon footprint calculator tool to its clients. This calculator enables your business to analyze energy use and cost for multiple years, track greenhouse gas emissions quickly and easily, view weather data to learn if weather affects your energy use, see the results of your energy conservation efforts on easy-to-read charts and graphs, and submit your commercial building data to ENERGY STAR to receive an official energy rating.

The calculator looks at energy, water, and heating fuel use. Coupled with a resource such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol calculator (http://www.ghgprotocol.org/calculation-tools/service-sector), which concentrates more on carbon emissions from vehicles, these calculators can serve as a robust toolkit for companies in designing office energy/water/carbon footprint reduction campaigns.

The Green Irene calculator requires access to a history of monthly utility bills (water and fuel data are optional if these utilities are not metered separately for your office). Also note that the calculator requires a minimum entry of 5,000 for office square footage.

As part of a Green Office Makeover, your local Green Irene Eco-Consultant can provide you with more information on this calculator, as well as many additional resources to help you develop and implement your conservation initiatives, including policy templates, research support, and a full line of eco-friendly products. Contact him or her today and get access to powerful resources that can help your business go green!

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of business self-regulation to incorporate social and environmental concerns. It represents a business model that adheres to laws, ethical standards, and international norms.

As part of the business model, businesses have to take into account the impact of their activities on the environment, employees, communities, stakeholders, and other members of the public. In short, CSR represents the deliberate inclusion of the public’s interest in a business’ decisionmaking to ensure a triple bottom line that considers the planet, people, and profits.

In general, CSR involves some kind of standardized reporting that allows the business to collect information on how it is making progress on various fronts. Businesses that engage in CSR typically focus on some or all of the following:

• Environment: This requires a look at the environmental impacts of products and services, as well as what the business does outside the company to improve the environment.
• Employees: It’s important to ensure that all employees are cared for adequately. Businesses usually focus on workplace conditions, benefits, living wages, and training.
• Communities: Engaging the surrounding communities is an important part of not just creating good human capital that can serve the business, but also securing a reputation that can further establish the business.
• Regulations: Respecting regulations to the fullest and often exceeding them is part of being socially responsible.
• Crisis Preparedness: Being ready to address business crises and ensure safety for employees and surrounding communities is critical. Having plans ready and tried are important in ensuring minimal losses during times of crises.

To learn more about CSR and how to implement it, sign up to Ask Green Irene to get implementation details.

I try to limit my use of disposables as much as possible. Reusing something is, after all, the greenest option. But it’s not always practical. For an office kitchen or corporate event, it may not make sense to have reusable plates that could be broken or lost.  At the same time, all those boxes of plastic plates won’t biodegrade any time soon. In fact, they’ll probably still be around for thousands of years. On top of it all, they’re made from oil, a nonrenewable resource that requires intensive processing. Some plastic plates can technically be recycled, but most recycling facilities will ultimately reject and trash plastics that are greasy or oily. That makes for some pretty dim prospects for recycling plates that have come in contact with any food. All and all, while it’s really convenient, disposable tableware is basically an eco-nightmare all around.

So, I was intrigued when I found some “eco-friendly” alternatives to disposable plastics. But at the same time, I was skeptical. Could something that’s disposable ever really be eco-friendly? After digging deep into this question, I think the answer is a clear yes. In fact, I feel so good about these products that Green Irene is now offering a line of disposable tableware.

So what is this magic material? In a word, sugar – the source of many wonderful things. Green Irene’s plates, bowls, and cups are made from bagasse, a byproduct created during sugarcane processing. Before it was used for tableware, bagasse was burned as waste. Turning this waste product into something useful is much greener than cutting down forests to make paper plates. These products can be torn up and put in your indoor or outdoor composter. They can also be sent to a municipal compost facility, or recycled along with your paper products. Green Irene’s bagasse items can handle hot and cold foods, and they’re even safe for microwave use.

For more information about Green Irene’s disposable tableware, check out Ask Green Irene entry #1204. If you are not a member (which you are when you get a  Green Home Makeover or Green Office Makeover), your local eco-consultant can help you select and order Green Irene’s recommended eco-friendly plates, bowls, cups and utensils.

Rosamaria Caballero
The Original Green Irene Eco-Consultant
rosamaria.caballero@greenirene.com