Going Green to Save you Money : Establishing a Coffee Shop

Excellent Tips to save money as well as go green from Dr.Martin Gibson, Director of Envirowise posted at Going green to save firms' money.

• Eliminate: avoid generating potential waste. For example, ask your suppliers to find ways of reducing the amount of packaging used or look at the possibility of employing re-usable packaging such as plastic crates.



• Reduce: think about the quantity of products you buy e.g. coffee. Buy in bulk where possible, and you will reduce the amount of waste packaging you produce.



• Re-use: there may be opportunities to re-use items normally thrown away after their initial use. Talk to your suppliers about supplying products in reusable containers.



• Recycle: once the amount of packaging has been reduced and re-used as much as possible, consider recycling waste materials. Speak to your Local Authority or waste disposal contractor.



• Dispose: you can even reduce the cost of disposing items that must be thrown away, by squashing boxes as flat as possible or breaking down bulky items.

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Next time you fly anywhere

remember that you are burning fuel.... I know some trips cannot be avoided. But if you can avoid flying or combine multiple flying trips into one or can use technology to deliver that presentation (when your physical presence is not required), you will be doing a lot of good to the environment as well as the future.

Just to give you a sense of how many gallons of fuel that a plane trip burns, I took this info from the ATA magazine for Oct/Nov/Dec 2007 in the CEO, Subodh Karnik's Welcome Message. According to him, a plane trip from California to Hawaii burns close to 5000 gallons of fuel (it is around 29 gallons per passenger). It is a welcome sign from CEO Karnik that ATA is trying to go green. But how much effort is really sufficient? Not very sure......

Reference: http://www.atasights.com

How much of an impact on the global climate change is the Air Traffic responsible?

According to the David Suzuki Foundation, it is around 5%.

Apparently, taking a vacation closer to home and choosing other efficient means of transport (Bus/Trains) can be beneficial to your aspirations of going green.

Look at this BBC report which talks about how the European Car makers are balking on the proposed emission targets.




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