How Your Business Can Become More Sustainable

Julie Starr • December 16, 2021



This blog post will discuss some ways to make your business more sustainable . The first step is to reduce the amount of energy you use at your office by using less power and switching out old appliances for new Office Technology Solutions . Next, look at how often you print documents and see if there are any alternatives like scanning or emailing them instead. Finally, try increasing recycling in your building by adding recycling bins or, even better yet, composting!

Reducing Energy Consumption

One of the most important ways to make your business more sustainable is to reduce energy consumption. There are several things you can do to accomplish this, such as:

-Installing energy-efficient light bulbs and fixtures

-Making sure all appliances are turned off when not in use

-Encouraging employees to turn off lights, computers, etc. when they leave the office

-Replace old appliances with newer models that are more energy efficient

You can determine how much you’re currently spending on electricity by checking your electric bill for the kilowatt-hours (kWh) used per month or year. By reducing your kWh using these tips, you will help reduce your energy consumption.

Start Recycling

You probably already recycle at home, but did you know that it’s just as easy to do so in the workplace? Recycling can be pretty straightforward, depending on how many people work for your company and where your office is. You could even partner with a local shop or restaurant nearby to ensure all of that recyclable material gets where it needs to go!

Get Into A Greener Mindset

One way is to get into a green mindset. It would help if you were willing to do whatever it takes for your business, including cutting down on electricity usage or adding recycled materials. This means even if something costs double what another product would cost, you need to be willing to put your money where your mouth is and commit.

Many people think that sustainability and being green are synonymous with sacrifice, but it doesn’t have to be. You can make small changes that will add up over time and significantly impact.

Promoting Good Health In The Workplace

Promoting employees’ health is not only good for them, but it can also help your business save money. There are several ways to get started with improving employee wellness to create a more sustainable work environment. Making small changes every day will add up over time and net you better results than an intense push all at once.   There are a few simple things that you can do right away to improve the health of your employees:

-Provide water bottles in break rooms for everyone and encourage them to refill their bottles throughout the day rather than buying disposable cups or plastic bottles.

-Promote healthy snacks by keeping fruit available at all times and plenty of low-calorie snacks.

-Create a culture of physical activity by offering discounted or free gym memberships, organizing walking meetings, and having wellness challenges throughout the year.

Promoting Teamwork In The Workplace

Sustainability is not only about reducing negative environmental impact. It is also about creating a workplace culture that values teamwork and cooperation. When employees feel like they are part of a team, they are more likely to be committed to the company’s goals and objectives.

There are many ways to promote teamwork in the workplace. For example, some companies have implemented team-building exercises, such as group problem solving or scavenger hunts. Others have created committees or task forces that allow employees to work together on specific projects. Whatever method you choose, the most important thing is to make sure everyone in the company is aware of the goals and objectives of the sustainability initiative.

Promoting Green Living Among Fellow Employees

One of the most important ways to make your business more sustainable is by promoting green living among your fellow employees. People can do many small things in their everyday lives to help reduce their environmental impact. Some simple tips for promoting green living among your colleagues include:

-Encouraging them to carpool or take public transportation whenever possible

-Making sure office equipment is turned off when not in use

-Using recycled paper products and biodegradable cleaning supplies

-Promoting energy conservation by turning off lights and computers when they’re not in use

-Organizing community outreach events to clean up parks and rivers

-Providing information about eco-friendly products in the office break room

Promoting green living among your employees will encourage them to take small steps every day that add up over time.  Your business may not be able to become fully sustainable, but you can make an effort to reduce your environmental impact. There are many ways that companies of all shapes and sizes can do this! Implementing some of these changes can help your business run smoother and be more profitable in the long run. In addition, promoting sustainable practices among your employees can help improve their quality of life while also positively impacting the environment.

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.