4 Tips on Generating a Better ROI through Sustainability and Market Expansion

Julie Starr • August 18, 2022



Generating a better return on investment (ROI) is essential for the success of any business, regardless of its size or industry. However, developing a better ROI can be difficult, especially in today’s competitive marketplace. This blog post will provide four tips on how to generate a better ROI for your business and help you achieve success while keeping investors happy.

Focus on your core competencies

One way to generate a better ROI for your business is to focus on your core competencies. By focusing on the areas of your business that you’re most skilled at, you can produce higher-quality products or services and tap into new markets. This will not only help you generate more revenue but also improve your reputation and brand image, both of which are important factors in generating a better ROI.

By expanding into new markets and product lines, businesses can often find themselves stretched too thin, leading to subpar results across the board. However, by honing in on their core competencies and focus areas, businesses can create a well-oiled machine that generates a higher ROI.

Create a niche market

Another way to generate a better ROI for your business is to create a niche market. By catering to a specific group of people or companies, you can create a loyal customer base that is more likely to return and recommend your products or services. Creating a niche market can also help you charge premium prices for your products or services, as customers are often willing to pay more for items that are specifically tailored to their needs.

While it may seem counterintuitive, businesses that focus on creating a niche market actually have less competition than those who try to be everything to everyone. By narrowing your focus, you can create an offering that is truly unique and stands out from the crowd. This will not only help you attract new customers but also keep them coming back for more.

Save money by implementing sustainable processes

A third way to generate a better ROI for your business is to save money by implementing sustainable processes. For example, sustainable businesses are often able to reduce their operating costs by using recycled materials , investing in energy-efficient technologies, and implementing other green practices. This can free up more resources that can be reinvested into the business, resulting in a higher ROI.

In addition to saving money, sustainable businesses also benefit from improved brand image and customer loyalty. As more and more consumers become aware of the importance of sustainability, they’re increasingly likely to do business with companies that share their values. So by investing in sustainable practices, you can not only generate a better ROI but also improve your brand image and attract new customers.

Focus on GIPS compliance

A fourth way to generate a better ROI for your business is to focus on gips compliance . The Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) are a set of ethical standards that aim to ensure the integrity of investment performance reporting. Adhering to these standards can help you attract and retain more clients, as they’ll have confidence in your ability to provide accurate and transparent reports.

In addition to attracting new clients, complying with GIPS can also help you improve your relationships with existing clients. By providing them with clear and concise reports that comply with international standards, you can build trust and foster transparency. This will not only improve your client relationships but also lead to improved retention rates and referrals.

Generating a better ROI for your business doesn’t have to be complicated. By following these four simple tips, you can improve your bottom line and create a more sustainable business. So what are you waiting for?

How Student-Led ‘Energy Audits’ Are Cutting School Costs (and Lighting the Way Forward)

By Julie Starr • July 14, 2025
What happens when students stop waiting for adults to fix things and start conducting their own energy audits? Money gets saved. The lights get switched off. Data gets analyzed. And a quiet revolution in sustainability begins—inside schools that once overlooked their own inefficiencies. Across the globe, student-led energy audits are proving that change doesn't always need to come from a policy shift or a major capital budget. Sometimes, it begins with a clipboard, a spreadsheet, and a group of curious minds asking: Why are the hallway lights on at noon when sunlight floods the building? The Energy Detectives These audits aren’t science fair projects. They’re rigorous investigations, often done in collaboration with facilities staff, local environmental nonprofits, or even engineering mentors. Students go from classroom to classroom measuring electricity usage, checking for phantom loads , and identifying where heat is escaping in winter or air conditioning is leaking in summer. One high school in Ontario saved over $12,000 a year after its Grade 11 physics students ran an energy audit and suggested simple changes—LED upgrades, motion sensors in bathrooms, and smarter heating schedules. They didn’t just propose ideas. They pitched them with spreadsheets, thermal images, and payback timelines. It worked. Learning That Pays Off—Literally Unlike textbook learning, these audits blend real-world math, environmental science, economics, and persuasive communication. Students aren’t just learning about sustainability. They’re doing it. And the savings add up. From dimming overlit hallways to reprogramming HVAC systems that run all weekend for empty buildings, students are surfacing blind spots that administrators often overlook. In some districts, their findings are influencing energy policy. Elsewhere, the audits have inspired school boards to hire sustainability coordinators—often alumni of the student programs themselves. There’s something poetic about a school funding new books or laptops from money saved by students who found out the vending machines didn’t need to be plugged in 24/7. Why This Matters More Than Ever With education budgets tightening and utility costs rising, every dollar saved is a dollar that can go back into classrooms. And here’s where it gets interesting from a family finance perspective, too. If you’re a parent setting aside money for post-secondary savings, every bit of school efficiency helps. Fewer energy costs might mean more programming, better STEM facilities, or even bursaries. That raises a broader point: when families save for their children’s future, they often look into RESPs (Registered Education Savings Plans). And many wonder—is a RESP deduction available on my taxes? While contributions themselves aren’t deductible, the gains grow tax-free, and students often pay little to no tax when they withdraw the funds during school. A Movement Worth Replicating These audits aren’t just an exercise in environmentalism. They’re leadership labs. Students learn how to spot inefficiencies, speak up in board meetings, and make a business case for change. They don’t just flip switches—they shift mindsets. And they carry these habits into adulthood. The result? A generation growing up not only with climate anxiety, but also with tools to tackle it.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.