The idea of being an eco-friendly warrior sounds appealing, but when you’re running a business, there’s only so much you can do to preserve the environment. Given the nature of the world of commerce, there’s often no way around it. At some point in time, you’re going to engage in practices that aren’t environmentally friendly, and you’ll have to buy from companies that can’t do anything about their carbon footprint.
Knowing your values and limits ahead of time will prove especially helpful, but you should also be prepared to balance that with realistic options by remaining flexible where necessary.
Sometimes you’ll need to compromise
At times, you’ll be presented with choices that don’t include an environmentally-friendly option, and that’s not necessarily bad. Sometimes you really don’t have a choice, and you need to run your business. For example, if you need raw materials in the form of a finely ground powder, you can’t really make that process eco-friendly. Since many products woven into the very fabric of society rely on milling services, there’s no alternative unless you decide to switch to running a different business.
You’ll need to pick and choose your battles wisely because running a business, by default, means you’re not going to be 100% eco-friendly all the time. That is a lofty goal that is virtually unobtainable.
Make eco-friendly decisions that matter
There are countless choices you can make to be more eco-friendly, but not all will bear much fruit. Save your energy and effort for the choices that will make the biggest impact. For example, it’s said that if everyone gave up plastic, it would make a huge difference. That may be true, but most people aren’t going to do it, and if giving up plastic makes your life harder, it may not be worth doing. For instance, if you spent a day taking stock of what you own that has a plastic component, you’d be shocked.
If you were to live a plastic-free life, you’d not only have to dump most of your belongings into a landfill right now, but your life would get exponentially harder. Everything you can imagine contains plastic, including clothes, tea bags, food containers, paper cups, carpets, envelopes, milk cartons, disposable wipes, children’s toys, computers, smartphones, all your toiletries, like shampoo bottles, bandages, and even kitchen sponges. There really is no escape from plastic. To live a plastic-free life would require a serious lifestyle downgrade to that of camping, but even less convenient.
Instead of making impossible decisions that will only complicate your life, make the eco-friendly decisions that will make a bigger impact. For example, stop buying new products that can be refilled, buy things you use regularly in bulk, repair your shoes and clothes, and do business with companies that are already sustainable when given a choice.
Choose a business that lends itself to being eco-friendly
If you have yet to start a business, and you’re thinking about what you want to do, start brainstorming ideas based on what types of businesses are easier to run as an eco-friendly venture. For example, running a small, sustainable vegetable farm to supply local coops with fresh food is a lot easier to run in a sustainable manner than producing shoes made of plastic and rubber.
If you’ve already been running a business that isn’t as sustainable as you’d like, consider changing course. You can always contact a broker to sell your existing business and put the money into starting a new business or buying one that is already running.
Don’t compromise your core values
It might be easier said than done, but don’t compromise your core values. If you run into a situation where you need to make a decision that is not environmentally friendly, and it goes against your core values, that could be a sign that it’s time to reconsider the type of business you want to operate. On the other hand, if the difference you’re making in the world outweighs not being perfectly eco-friendly all the time, you may not need to compromise your core values to stay in business.
What matters is that you stay true to your convictions, and if you need to switch the type of business you run, don’t wait. You’ll probably never run a completely eco-friendly business, but with some effort and commitment, you can get pretty close.
