8 Things To Consider When Starting Your Sustainable Business

Julie Starr • May 19, 2020



If you’re thinking of starting a sustainable business but you don’t know where to begin then don’t worry, you have definitely come to the right place. Whether you have had your idea for years or it’s something that has only just come to you, you need to be sure you’re making the right decision. Whilst it may be overwhelming, there are lots of questions you can ask yourself to ensure exactly that. From deciding on what your business is going to be doing to working out how it’s going to make a profit in a sustainable way, the more questions you’re asking yourself the better. With that in mind, here are 8 things to consider when starting your sustainable busines s:

What Will Your Business Be Doing?

One of the first things you need to consider is what your business is going to be doing, as this will be the basis of your journey as an entrepreneur. Whether you’re going to be offering sustainably made products or you have developed an app that encourages people to think about their energy consumption, you need to clearly plan out exactly what it is your business is going to be doing. The sooner you do this, the easier the process will be.

How Will It Be Sustainable?

When thinking about your business and what they’re going to be doing, you also need to detail how it’s going to be sustainable. Although this will be obvious to you, it may be something you have to explain during pitches to potential investors or buyers.

The best way to approach this, of course, is to come up with a thirty-second elevator pitch that details what your business does and how it helps the environment. For a guide to putting together an elevator pitch , you can visit this site here.

What Are Your Overall Business Values?

Another important thing to consider is your values, as these will help to define your business. Although it may take some time to perfect them, thinking about what you will offer your customers is incredibly important. For a guide to putting together your business’ values , you can visit this handy site here.

How Will Your Business Make A Profit In A Sustainable Way?

When it comes to running a sustainable business, often it’s a little harder to make a profit. Whether you’re paying more for materials or you have a smaller target audience, you need to think about exactly how your business is going to be making a profit and whether or not it’s something you can sustain.

Have You Considered Your Costs?

When it comes to profits, you also need to think about your costs as chances are when you’re running a sustainable business, your costs are going to be much higher. If you don’t know what your exact costs are going to be right away, it might be worth putting a rough estimate together as you’re finding the best suppliers for your business.

Do You Need To Employ Any Staff?

Another important thing to consider when it comes to starting a sustainable business is whether or not you’re going to need to hire any staff. Although this may not be something you do right away, hiring staff is the perfect way to free up your time to work on business growth. Whether you outsource or bring someone on full-time, you will notice the difference in no time.

If you do need to employ staff, here are 8 Payroll Reports Every Business Manager Needs To Know.

How Will You Promote Your Business To Others?

As you start to launch your business, you need to think about how you’re going to promote it to others. When it comes to sustainability, online is often the best place to start.

What Are Your Targets As A Business?

Finally, you need to think about your targets as a business. Whether you’re looking to make a difference in the world of sustainability or you’re looking to make a profit during your first year, setting goals is a great way to keep you motivated. For a guide to setting goals , you can visit this site here.

With lots of important things to consider before starting a sustainable business, you can be sure you’re doing all that you can to protect the environment at the same time as following your dreams. What else do you need to consider? Did we miss anything off of the list? Let me know your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

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.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.