This week’s Entrepreneur University comes thanks to Dixie Schmatz. Dixie Schmatz is President and Co-Founder of Notyak - Gateway to Greener Living found on the web at www.notyak.com. Dixie is an expert on how you can improve your business while being environmentally friendly at the same time. Today she shares her tips on how to save money by reducing your energy consumption:

“In your business you have specific places you can cut energy use. Some of these may not be seriously noticed and others may mean a big shift in business practices.

o Heating and air conditioning may be an easy place to start. Did you know that according to the EPA if you turn your heat down 1 degree in the winter you can reduce the amount of CO2 that goes into the atmosphere by 46 pounds/year? If you turn your air conditioner up by 1 degree you save 55 pounds/year. The amount of cost savings is hard to gauge depending on your location but every little bit helps. A good investment might be an automatic thermostat so energy use can be significantly reduced when your business is not active. For many businesses this is an easy place to save some money.

Other energy savings may require creativity or investment.

o If you make deliveries, maybe some mapping software could help you lay out better routes and in the end save more than the software cost – plus reduce your carbon footprint.

o If possible, you may decide to reduce office or cubicle size, or increase the number of customers you can serve per area so that you can get more productivity for the amount of space you have to heat or cool.

o You may need to replace some of your equipment so it is more energy efficient. If several of your employees have their own small refrigerator, it might cost less to get one larger one with a good Energy Star rating.

o You may want to turn equipment off or down during unused times. Computers should go into sleep mode if not actually turn off when your business is closed.

o Some businesses are actually changing their hours so they are not open as late at night. Others are turning off the lights they used to use for advertising while the store was closed.

The good news for the environment is whatever you can do to save energy reduces the CO2 put into the atmosphere and saves you money as well.”

How have you saved money and helped the environment with your business?

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

Did you enjoy this article? If so, then subscribe to our RSS Feed.