Ways To Make Your Company More Sustainable

Julie Starr • December 31, 2021



Making your company sustainable doesn’t have to be difficult. There are many things you can do that will decrease your impact on the environment and make it easier for your business to continue. This blog post will go over some of the best ways to start making your company more environmentally friendly, which could also result in a happier workforce!

Saying No To Plastic Straws

Plastic straws are a major contributor to plastic waste. They’re often used once and then tossed in the trash, where they can take hundreds of years to decompose. To reduce the amount of plastic waste produced each year, many restaurants and businesses have started saying no to plastic straws. If your company is looking for ways to become more sustainable, consider doing the same.

There are several alternatives to plastic straws that you can use instead. For example, you can offer paper or bamboo straws or even stainless steel straws. If customers need a straw for their drink, ask them if they’d like one made from biodegradable materials. You may also want to remind customers not to leave their straws behind when they finish their drink.

Reducing Your Company’s Waste

Another way to make your company more sustainable is to reduce the amount of waste. Start by evaluating how much waste your company creates and finding ways to cut back. You can do this by recycling and composting as much as possible, using reusable containers and utensils, and choosing products that come in recyclable packaging.

You may also want to consider implementing a green purchasing policy. This means that you only purchase products that have a minimal environmental impact. For example, you might choose energy-efficient light bulbs or office supplies made from recycled materials.

Promoting Sustainable Practices

Sustainable practices aren’t just good for the environment; they can also benefit your bottom line. That’s why it’s important to promote sustainability within your company. You can do this by educating employees about the benefits of sustainable practices and encouraging them to adopt green habits.

You can also make it easier for employees to go green by providing recycling bins, composting bins, and energy-saving light bulbs. And don’t forget to lead by example! Show employees that you’re committed to sustainability by making eco-friendly choices in your own life.

How To Be A Paperless Office

Scan important documents and save them on your computer. If possible, store the files in a cloud so that anyone can access them from anywhere with an internet connection. This will help avoid paper clutter and lose valuable information if you misplace a document! If you are a real estate agency, using real estate logo templates will help you save time and paper.

Take notes digitally instead of writing things down by hand to free up space for other tasks. Your handwritten notes may become obsolete at some point, whereas digital records are always accessible – even when there’s no power!

Switching To Renewable Energy Sources

Switching to renewable energy sources is one of the easiest and most impactful ways to make your company more sustainable. There are several renewable energy sources available, such as solar, wind, and hydropower. Each of these sources has its unique benefits and drawbacks that you’ll need to consider before making the switch.

Solar power is becoming increasingly popular due to its low cost and ease of installation. Solar panels can be installed on rooftops or in open fields, requiring very little maintenance. Additionally, solar energy is a good option for companies located in sunny climates.

Wind power is another popular choice, especially for companies located near large bodies of water. Wind turbines can be installed offshore or onshore, and they are relatively low-maintenance. However, wind turbines can be expensive to install.

Hydropower is a good option for companies located near large bodies of water. Hydroelectric dams can generate electricity, and they are relatively low-maintenance. However, hydropower can be expensive to install.

Composting & Recycling At Work

It is essential to make sure your company recycles and composts. This will help reduce the amount of waste you produce, which will decrease how much trash you have to pay for.

Composting can be a great way for employees to get involved with helping out their community while having fun at work! However, it’s important that there are multiple ways people can participate – including recycling, reusing materials that would otherwise go into landfills or incinerators (such as paper), reducing their consumption of resources such as water and electricity whenever possible, purchasing recycled products rather than new ones made from virgin materials, using energy-efficient technologies when feasible, etc.

Minimizing Waste In The Office Kitchen

One way to make your company more sustainable is by minimizing the waste in the office kitchen. This can be done by composting food scraps and using recyclable materials whenever possible. You can also encourage employees to bring their reusable water bottles and coffee mugs instead of using disposable cups. Teaching your employees about sustainability and how they can help contribute to it is a great way to make your company more environmentally friendly!

Promoting Sustainable Transportation Options

Another easy way for companies to become more sustainable is by promoting sustainable transportation options. This can include providing bicycle parking, offering employee discounts on public transportation, or even installing charging stations for electric vehicles. By promoting these types of sustainable transportation options, you can help reduce greenhouse gas.

Educating Employees On Sustainability Practices

One of the simplest and most effective ways to make your company more sustainable is by educating your employees on sustainability practices. This can include anything from reducing energy consumption to recycling and composting. You may also want to consider hosting workshops or training sessions on how to be more environmentally conscious in your everyday life.

Bring Your Own Cup Campaign

Recently, a lot of cafes have started implementing the Bring Your Own Cup campaign. This is where customers are encouraged to bring in their own reusable cups when they buy coffee or tea. Not only does this help reduce waste, but it also helps to save money for the customer. If every customer brought in their own cup, the cafe would not need to use disposable cups, which would result in less waste and lower costs.

In conclusion, it is important to realize that the issue of sustainability needs to be addressed by every company. Whether it’s creating partnerships with sustainable companies, providing programs for employees, or recycling materials, you can make a difference in your community!

 

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.