Turning Your Business Green: Simple Steps to Get Started

Julie Starr • July 3, 2024

So, you’re thinking about turning your business green? That’s awesome! Not only will you be doing your bit for the planet, but you’ll also win brownie points with customers who care about sustainability. Plus, it’s a smart move financially in the long run. Let's dive into some practical steps to help you make your business greener and more eco-friendly.


Take a Good Look at What You’re Doing Now

Before you start making changes, you’ve got to know where you’re at. Take a walk around your office or workspace and really look at how things are running. Are you using a lot of non-recyclable materials? Is your energy bill sky-high? Identifying the areas that need improvement is the first step.

Think about it like a health check-up for your business. Maybe you notice that your lights are on all day even when it’s sunny outside or that you’re printing way more paper than necessary. These are little red flags that you can address with some simple fixes.


Set Some Green Goals

Once you know where you need to improve, it’s time to set some goals. Don’t go overboard and try to do everything at once. Start with a few realistic targets, like reducing waste by 20% or switching to eco-friendly packaging. Make sure your goals are clear and achievable – you want to be able to see your progress and give yourself a pat on the back when you hit them!

Having specific goals helps keep you on track and gives you something to aim for. Plus, it feels great to see how far you’ve come when you start ticking those goals off your list.


Switch to Renewable Energy

One of the biggest changes you can make is switching to renewable energy sources. This might sound like a huge deal, but it doesn’t have to be. You could start by signing up for a green energy plan or looking into solar panels.

Take a look at companies like JDI Plastics. They’re really taking sustainability seriously and have some great initiatives. You can check out what they’re doing here: https://jdiplastics.com/sustainability/. It’s inspiring to see how a business can really make a difference.



Embrace the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

It’s the mantra everyone learned in school, but it really works. Start by reducing the amount of waste you create. This could mean cutting down on single-use plastics or finding ways to use less paper.

Next, think about reusing what you can. Maybe you can repurpose some of your office supplies or find a new use for scrap materials. Finally, make recycling a no-brainer for everyone. Set up clearly marked recycling bins and make sure everyone knows what goes where. It’s a simple step that can have a big impact.


Choose Green Suppliers

Your business doesn’t operate in a vacuum. The suppliers you choose can have a big impact on your sustainability efforts. Look for suppliers who are committed to eco-friendly practices. This might mean choosing companies that use recycled materials or offer sustainable products.

By picking green suppliers, you’re not just improving your business, but you’re also supporting a wider network of companies that care about the environment. It’s a win-win!


Get Everyone on Board

Going green is a team effort. Make sure your employees are in the loop and excited about the changes. This could be as simple as having a chat about why you’re making these changes and how everyone can help.

Encourage your customers to join in too. Maybe you can offer discounts for returning packaging or run a campaign to promote eco-friendly products. The more people you get involved, the bigger the impact you’ll make.

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.