Tips For Starting Your Online Eco Business

Julie Starr • July 20, 2020



Starting a business has never been simple. It involves determination and expertise that are garnered over years of hard work in your industry. Whatever your business model, the field of eco-friendly products and services is ever-growing. Running a business is an intense, never-ending grind which takes serious patience and deftness of spirit. From connecting with your customer base , to setting up your IT services, to maintaining cybersecurity, to design features – as a business owner you will wear many hats. If that sounds like it’s your bag, here are some tips for starting your online eco-business.

Finding Your Niche
 Finding your niche within sustainability culture is about seeing the needs of the market. In the era of COVID-19, online businesses boomed, due to the fact that everybody had to stay at home and shop almost exclusively online. Eco-friendly online businesses were able to thrive and serve the needs of their communities by providing safe, sustainable services, and products to those who are passionate about the environment and climate. 

Whatever your business model, you need a niche. A gap in the market that nobody else has filled yet. The world is already in a climate crisis – your business’ sustainable services are needed. Instead of despairing at the state of the world, see it as an opportunity to fulfill the needs that others have failed to. 

The Benefits of Outsourcing
 Many new businesses are afraid to outsource. This is because outsourcing seems expensive, and many new business owners are protective of their brand and their products. They do not want anybody to step in and change up their specific branding. However, it is actually highly beneficial to your business to have a fresh set of eyes cast over your projects. Plus, unless you are a wizard who is trained in every single area of expertise across the board of business, you are likely to need help. 

One area of your online business that you should consider outsourcing is, of course, the IT side of things. Outsourced IT for Businesses assures that your cybersecurity, payments, data, and website are watertight and ready for customers to rely on. 

Transparency
 As an eco-friendly company, transparency is essential. Many companies claim to be eco-friendly while providing little to no information about the sources of their product lines. This is referred to as green-washing and essentially means that the company is using eco-friendly branding in order to be trusted by their customers who are concerned for the environment – but they don’t actually use eco-friendly resources. 

In order to be an eco-friendly company, you must do more than green-washing. You should be transparent about where you source your materials from, how they are transported, how much those who make them are paid, and how your company is helping the planet thrive, not just survive. Transparency will separate you from the green-washing companies who use eco-labeling to boost sales and establish you well within the environmental activism community.

Earth Day is a Moment. Sustainability is a Journey.

By Julie Starr • April 7, 2025
Every April 22nd, Earth Day reminds us of our shared responsibility to care for the planet. It’s a powerful moment for reflection, recognition, and renewed commitment to environmental stewardship. But for companies like Taiga, Earth Day is not just a day—it's a checkpoint in a journey that spans all 365 days of the year. Beyond the Day: The Power of Year-Round Storytelling While Earth Day is an excellent opportunity to spotlight your company's environmental efforts, the true impact lies in consistent, transparent communication about your sustainability strategy. Customers, investors, employees, and partners are increasingly interested in how companies plan, act, and improve over time. To build trust and inspire action, companies should: Share clear targets: What are your goals for emissions reduction, circularity, or biodiversity? Make them specific and time-bound. Report results honestly: Celebrate wins and be candid about setbacks. Progress, not perfection, is the story. Connect efforts to impact: Highlight how your initiatives benefit ecosystems, communities, or supply chains. Leveraging Earth Day as a Strategic Moment Think of Earth Day as a milestone that anchors your broader communications. Some ideas: Launch or preview new initiatives that reinforce your long-term strategy. Tell human stories: Showcase employees, community members, or suppliers contributing to sustainability. Host interactive events: Webinars, volunteer days, or innovation showcases invite people into the journey. Publish a sustainability snapshot: A visual, engaging recap of the past year's progress. Engaging Stakeholders Year-Round To keep the momentum going beyond April: Create a sustainability content calendar to share updates, behind-the-scenes looks, and educational content. Invite feedback: Use surveys or listening sessions to understand stakeholder priorities and ideas. Collaborate: Partner with NGOs, academics, or startups aligned with your mission. Recognize champions: Celebrate employees and partners who go above and beyond. Bringing It Together: A Continuous Narrative Earth Day is a valuable opportunity to raise awareness, but lasting impact comes from building a continuous narrative. At Taiga, we see sustainability not as a series of campaigns but as a shared journey with our stakeholders . When we connect the dots between moments like Earth Day and the year-round work behind the scenes, we not only deepen engagement—we accelerate change. So this Earth Day, let’s celebrate progress and recommit to transparency, collaboration, and bold action. The planet needs more than promises. It needs a plan. And it needs all of us.

Greener Clicks: How to Reduce Your Environmental Impact with Sustainable Digital Marketing

By Julie Starr • March 31, 2025
In the race to decarbonize our world, one area often overlooked is digital marketing. While it might seem inherently clean compared to print or physical campaigns, our online activities have a real and measurable environmental footprint. From servers powering your website to emails filling up inboxes, every click, stream, and scroll contributes to carbon emissions. At Taiga Company, we believe digital strategies can be powerful and low-impact. Here’s how to get started. Optimize for a Low-Carbon Web Why it matters: Websites and digital ads are hosted on servers that consume electricity, often powered by fossil fuels. Every time a user loads your site or ad, it uses energy. How to reduce your impact: Host green: Choose web hosts that use renewable energy or offset emissions. Clean up your code: Streamlined, efficient code reduces load times and energy use. Compress and reduce images: Smaller files mean faster pages and fewer emissions. Limit heavy media: Videos and animations are carbon-intensive; use them mindfully. A faster, leaner website isn’t just better for the planet—it also boosts SEO and user experience. Email Marketing with Intention Why it matters: Every email sent, received, and stored requires energy. Multiply that by millions of sends, and the impact adds up. How to reduce your impact: Clean your lists: Remove inactive subscribers to avoid waste. Segment wisely: Only send emails to those who will truly benefit. Use plain-text when possible: It’s lower in data and often more accessible. Reduce frequency: Send fewer, higher-quality emails with genuine value. Intentional emailing reduces not only emissions but also improves deliverability and engagement. Sustainable SEO and Content Strategy Why it matters: Search engines crawl, index, and serve up billions of web pages daily. Thoughtless content and bloated sites add to the load. How to reduce your impact: Create evergreen content: Focus on high-quality pages that stay relevant longer. Streamline your site structure: Fewer clicks to find content = less energy use. Use minimal plugins and scripts: Especially ones that load on every page. Green your CMS: Some content management systems are more resource-efficient than others. Sustainable SEO isn’t just eco-friendly—it’s good strategy. Fewer, better pieces often perform better than content mills. Rethink Marketing Automation Why it matters: Automated emails, ads, and data syncing can create a lot of digital clutter. That clutter eats up storage and energy. How to reduce your impact: Audit regularly: Retire old workflows and outdated automations. Optimize syncing: Reduce how often and how much data is transferred. Segment with purpose: Better targeting means fewer wasted sends. Use expiration dates: Don’t let outdated content or assets live forever. Efficient automation can reduce emissions and improve performance. Digital marketing isn’t going away—and it shouldn’t. It offers powerful tools for connection, education, and growth. But like all tools, it can be used more sustainably. At Taiga Company, we’re committed to helping organizations lower their environmental impact without sacrificing reach or results. Sustainable digital marketing is not only possible; it’s essential. Ready to make your marketing aligned with your company's corporate sustainability plan? Let’s start the conversation.
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