Sustainable Outsourcing: Making The Right Decisions

Julie Starr • December 2, 2020



Most businesses find that they need to use outsourcing in one way or another. If you are looking to improve your business with the use of outsourcing, you will need to make sure that you are doing so in a way that fits in with your ethical framework as a company too. Most businesses are keen to try and be as sustainable as possible these days, for instance. As it happens, there are a lot of ways in which you can make sure you are outsourcing sustainably, and in this article, we are going to look at some of them in detail.

Putting The Planet Above Competitiveness

When you are searching around for the right company to help your business along in some way or another, competition is clearly going to play a big role. But if you really care about keeping your business sustainable , you will need to make sure that you are putting the planet above that competitiveness as best as you possibly can. In other words, always make sure that you work with the sustainable and environmentally ethical team over the cheaper one, if that is the choice you are faced with. As long as you do that, you should find that your outsourcing is much better for the planet on the whole.

Keep An Eye On Purchasing Processes

When you are researching companies you might be using as outsource partners, you need to look into their supply chain in as much detail as possible. In particular, you should look into their purchasing processes , and make sure that they live up to the kind of ethical green standard you are hoping to maintain in your own business. This information should be fairly easy to come by, and if it is not that can often mean that the company in question has something to hide. By keeping a close eye on this, you can tell whether the company in question is truly operating in as sustainable a manner as you would hope.

Seek Out Green-Dedicated Teams

There are teams out there who are absolutely dedicated to being as green as possible in everything they do. If you can manage to find those teams in particular, you are going to be sure that they are a good bunch to work with, as their processes are bound to be in place with regard to keeping things sustainable. So when a company makes a big noise about green issues, that should be a, well, green light for the go-ahead. You know you will be working with an outsource team who really care as much as you do about doing their bit for the planet.

Ask For Sustainable Goals

One way to determine whether a company you are looking to work with really cares about sustainability is to ask to see a list of their sustainable goals. If this is something that they tend to truly prioritize, then producing that list should not be too much of a problem, and you can then look through it and see how serious they are. If they are unable to produce a list  or the one they do produce is simply not up to scratch, you know that you should think about looking elsewhere instead. In either case, you have saved some time and ensured that you have not deviated from your own commitment to operating in a sustainable fashion.

Consider The Differential Effects Of Outsourcing Versus In-House

Whenever you are hoping to outsource anything, one thing you should bear in mind is how more or less it is going to affect sustainability compared to doing the same work in-house. You can generally be sure that it’s as sustainable, and therefore a good move, if the work happens in a similar environment to where you run your business, or it’s being carried out by a team with similar goals to you. Some tasks are just clearly as sustainable in an outsourced setting as they are in-house, like using content writing services by companies like FATJOE . In those cases, you know outsourcing is a perfectly sustainable option.

Use That Saved Time To Improve Other Areas

When you want your business to be a leader in sustainability, you need to have a wide focus on everything you are doing in your business at once. So, anything that you might do in terms of outsourcing is likely to have some kind of effect in this wider way. If you are outsourcing a lot, you are probably saving a lot of time that way, not to mention a lot of energy too. If you make a point of using at least some of that time and energy into improving your sustainability in other areas, then that’s an important way in which you are helping to keep things green too.

Learn From Your Partners

On occasion, it might even be the case that the partners you have chosen to work with are altogether operating in a way that is more sustainable than your own company. When that is the case, the best approach is to simply use this as inspiration for improving things in your own business. In fact, you could make a point of asking them what they do and how they do it, and in the process you might be able to learn a thing or two that you can carry forwards. This is just another powerful reason to make sure you are seeking out teams who care about sustainability.

Never Compromise

From time to time, you might come across an outsourcing opportunity that is just too good to be true. It might be a ridiculously low offer price, or it could be promising a crazy fast turnaround time. Whatever it is, if you have the suspicion that what’s being offered is in sacrifice of sustainability, don’t go for it. Ultimately, it is never worth compromising in this way. As long as you stick to your guns, you should have a sustainable operation you can be proud of.

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.