Why Capital Planning Is A Decisive Factor Of Sustainability

Julie Starr • June 27, 2022



Creating a sustainable business is no easy task. Many entrepreneurs struggle to build a green business that preserves the environment. Indeed, environmentally-friendly best practices tend to be less friendly on the business budget. Sustainable products are likely to be more expensive to make, and they often require more energy as part of the manufacturing process. Additionally, organizing an effective supply of sustainable materials and tailoring profitable green business practices can be tough challenges for small businesses. 

According to a Harvard study, the cost of building a sustainable business in the United States is about $500 billion every year . It is the minimum cost to prevent fossil fuel burning, carbon emissions, and unethical practices. Most companies are not in a position to commit to this level of expenditure. While many businesses choose to move toward sustainable practices and strategies gradually, the International Energy Agency estimates that $45 trillion will be required to introduce green operations into every single company. 

The bottom line: Sustainability is not necessarily a cost-effective choice for a company. While it doesn’t mean that businesses can’t save costs by embracing sustainable decisions, the cost of sustainability itself is not negligible. Does it mean, however, that cost is the main issue that companies will face when they add a sustainability goal to their strategies? 

The answer is no. Of course, building green operations and activities is expensive. Yet, business owners do not struggle with making sustainable investments per se. The most important challenge to making sustainability a viable solution for the business is planning capital use and availability in the long term. There’s nothing t o gain from committing to a single sustainable decision when the company doesn’t prepare for prolonged investments, returns, and activities to maintain its sustainable direction. 

Only the right customers are willing to pay more for sustainability

Sustainable products and services are more expensive than mainstream alternatives. Yet, as many customers have proven, price is not necessarily an obstacle when it comes to selling green products. The desire to embrace a green lifestyle and reduce environmental impact is present among all generations of shoppers. However, Millennials, Generation X, and Boomers are the customers more likely to support eco-friendly companies as they tend to have more disposable income to spend. The audience for green products and services is small, compared to other products, but as it increases year on year. Indeed, the demand is low compared to other offerings, yet the audience group for sustainable solutions is growing steadily. 

With the right communication and marketing strategy, green companies can manage to attract eco-conscious customers and grow their revenues. Sustainable companies can dedicate their content to sharing their eco-friendly strategies and aspirations for the future, showcasing the relevant certifications, and exchanging best practice tips with their network. With more and more green businesses entering the market, your marketing presence becomes an essential part of your brand identity. Therefore, making sustainability a profitable decision begins with preserving market share and reaching year after year. 

Find protective solutions when plan A fails

As mentioned, creating a sustainable business is an expensive strategy that includes your equipment investment, technology choice, and team. 

Picture a situation where the business decides to implement a new tech solution at the operational level to reduce its environmental impact. The solution is a success, but it requires specialist training to manage effectively. Unfortunately, the individual responsible for its implementation goes unexpectedly missing as a result of a long-term medical condition. Without an adequate key man insurance policy in place to protect the strategy and fund the next activities, it is likely the business would be forced to abandon the sustainable solution to save training costs and remain profitable. 

Insurance policies are an essential protective shield for your company. They can prevent loss in the event of injuries in the workplace, customers’ complaints, or even theft. Yet, more importantly, these policies serve a crucial purpose by enabling the company to maintain its long-term strategy. As sustainability is not a one-off investment but a permanent change of direction, operations, and activities, companies must consider how potential risks could affect their strategies. The monetary loss a company sustains through a liability or personal injury case, for example, could contribute to abandoning sustainable activities to focus on low-cost and fast return strategies. That’s precisely why insurance policies are crucial to preserving capital funds for sustainability in businesses, regardless of what the future might bring. 

Investing today to save money tomorrow

Introducing environmentally-friendly practices within a company is unlikely to have an immediate positive return. Sustainability investments can save money, such as investing in renewable energy , but corporations must be willing to lose money first before they can recoup their losses. 

Indeed, switching to renewable energy will reduce the business energy bills. But, the initial cost of installing renewable generation resources for a commercial structure, such as solar panels, varies between $132,000 and $430,000. Needless to say, even with monthly savings, it will still take the business many years to recover the initial investment. Therefore, the sustainable strategy must consider ways of reducing the financial impact of the investment to keep the business afloat. 

Thankfully, there are still plenty of environmentally-conscious financing opportunities for companies. Bringing eco-friendly equipment to the business can bring tax advantages, such as the ability to reduce tax payments. Some federal and regional institutions also provide grants or partial financing options for green solutions, making them more accessible to small businesses. More often than not, it can be beneficial for companies planning substantial sustainability investments to work closely with a financial and accounting advisor who can help with:

  • Funds gathering
  • Tax deduction
  • Green loan management
  • Environmental grant applications 

Failure to prepare for the long-term financial consequences could put on hold all sustainable projects for small businesses. 

Redefining the expected gain

The most important question a business must ask when approaching sustainable strategies is not how long before returns become visible but what types of returns can be expected. Indeed, eco-friendly operations and activities may not immediately deliver a financially quantifiable gain. As seen with renewable energy, it will take many years before savings on energy bills recover the cost of the initial investment. So what is the gain of sustainability for businesses, and what difference does it make?

Sustainable decisions have a positive environmental impact, which is immediately measurable. Beware; however, measurable is not synonymous with visible. For instance, a business can instantly reduce its carbon footprint with the installation of solar panels. But, the local population may not see the positive impact on the wildlife and the air quality for several months and years. That’s precisely why it’s crucial to keep track of sustainable efforts and share the results with your audience group and shareholders. 

Customers and investors also prefer to spend their money on green businesses. So, it makes sense to focus on sustainable activities as part of brand positioning and reputation protection. In the long term, environmentally-conscious companies are more likely to remain relevant in the future market as long as they can manage to secure funds until sustainability drives tangible profits.  

Sustainability is a slow progress

Unfortunately, sustainability is a slow process that needs time:

  • To implement
  • To measure
  • To generate profits

There’s no magical button companies can press to go from 0 to 100 when it comes to sustainability. The first challenge a business faces is to change the established habits of employees and customers. Something as simple as reducing paper waste by asking employees not to print documents can lead to frustrations, a loss in productivity, and slow completion as people need to learn new work routines and tools. So, it’s not so much a matter of immediately saving costs through the elimination of printing. Removing the printer from the office incurs an initial loss, which makes it even harder to motivate employees. 

Ultimately, because sustainable strategies can introduce new methods that clash with existing habits, the audience can be slow to accept transformations. First reactions may be negative, which slows down the progression of sustainability in the business world. Businesses must not only prepare for the initial investment but also for additional losses before they can measure the benefits of eco-friendly strategies. 

Unlocking green funds is not easy

How does a small company find the money to make sustainability its new operational reality? Applying for commercial loans is no easy process. Many companies are not eligible for conventional loan applications as they may not meet credit score criteria or may not have been in business for long enough. 

Similarly, grants may be difficult to obtain for small businesses and startups. Indeed, grants tend to provide partial financing for sustainable transformations, which means the company must still pay the remaining costs. 

Crowdfunding opportunities can be tricky too. With thousands of companies turning to crowdfunding platforms to finance growth and strategic changes, it is a competitive sphere where many fail to secure the funds they need. 

In conclusion, it is important to understand that sustainable strategies require appropriate planning to remain viable. Financing the implementation of eco-friendly technology or carbon-neutral operations is only one of the challenges a business has to overcome. Sustainability is a long-term project that needs extensive capital planning to elevate a company and deliver a measurable, quantifiable, and visible impact. 

5 Everyday Items That Can Quietly Boost Your Brand

By Julie Starr • July 17, 2025
The best branding doesn’t always come from big campaigns or expensive graphics. Sometimes it’s the smaller stuff that leaves the biggest impression. Things people actually use, touch, or carry with them. That’s where your brand can quietly make its mark without needing to shout about it. If you’re only focusing on social media and business cards, you’re leaving a lot on the table. Here are five overlooked ways to get your name out there that feel natural, useful, and more personal. Thank-you slips If you’re already sending out orders, there’s no reason not to include a short thank-you slip. You can easily get these made through any decent online print shop , and they’re usually pretty cheap to run off in small batches. Just a simple note that says thanks, maybe with a reminder to follow you online or a cheeky discount code for next time. It’s quick, thoughtful, and makes the whole order feel more finished. Customers notice that kind of detail, especially when everything else they buy online comes with zero personality. You don’t need a complicated design either. Just something clean with your logo, a message that sounds like you, and maybe a social handle. The point is to give them a reason to come back or remember your name without it feeling forced. Branded zip pouches If you sell physical products, offer services, or run events, small zip pouches are surprisingly effective. Think of the kind you’d use for stationery, receipts, or travel bits. You can get your brand printed on the side and hand them out with purchases or include them in welcome packs. People keep them because they’re actually useful. They get tossed in handbags, school bags, or glove boxes and your logo just keeps turning up. Cleaning cloths for glasses or screens This one works brilliantly if you’re in tech, health, beauty, or anything involving screens or eyewear. A simple microfibre cloth with your branding on it can go a long way. Everyone needs one. Whether they use it for glasses, a phone screen, or their laptop, it’s something they hang onto. It’s not the kind of thing people throw away, and that means your name sticks around too. Receipt envelopes You might already use little envelopes to hand over receipts or business cards. Branding those envelopes is a small change that makes a big difference. Instead of someone getting a scruffy bit of paper in a plain sleeve, they’re handed something that feels a bit more finished. You can even add a message inside. Doesn’t need to be anything dramatic. A simple “thanks for visiting” or “see you next time” is enough to add a personal touch. Wet wipes or mini hand gels If your business is in hospitality, food, or anything hands-on, branded wet wipes or pocket-sized hand gels are surprisingly popular. People actually use them, especially at festivals, food stalls, pop-ups, or kids’ events. They end up in handbags or cars and stick around longer than you think. They don’t scream “marketing” either. They’re practical, and when done right, they make your business feel thoughtful. That’s what good branding does, it shows you’ve thought ahead.

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.