• Panasonic Dect 6.0 Series 3 Handset Cordless Phone System with Answering System (KX-TG1033S)
• Vtech CS5111-2 Two Handset Cordless Phone System with Caller ID
• Panasonic Integrated Business Phone (KX-TS105B)
• Panasonic KX-TS4300B 4-Line Integrated Phone System expandable up to 16 stations with Speakerphone

What makes these phones green? They use less energy, as certified by Energy Star or are made using greener materials. Telephones can suck a lot of energy as they leach from the wall all day, making cell phones a greener option in many cases, but if you own a business and need a phone, the above options are great for being a bit nicer to Mother Nature.

Post from: EveryJoe

Green Telephones

According to reports, the Subway restaurant chain will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by – get this – THREE MILLION POUNDS just by replacing ONE incandescent light bulb with a CFL bulb in each store. That’s the same as removing 275 cars from the road for an entire year.

For more food industry news, check out Daily Blender, including this past articles on Subway.

Should you choose green lighting?

Without a doubt, the answer is YES. CFL bulbs look expensive at first compared to regular light bulbs, but trust me – you make your money back really quickly. Your electricity bills will drop, AND you’ll be doing something good for the environment. On top of that, CFLs will last a lot longer, so you’ll save money there too!

Here’s how I like to deal with the cost of green lighting:

If you replace all of the bulbs in your business (or house for that matter) at once, you’ll spend hundreds of dollars. Instead, every time you are shopping, pick up 1-5 bulbs. Replace lights as they burn out, or replace bulbs that you know are fairly old (and likely to burn out soon – you don’t want to create unnecessary waste by replacing bulbs you JUST bought).

When you spread out the purchases over weeks or months, the money is easier to find in your budget.

You can purchase CFL bulbs almost anywhere you can purchase regular bulbs, but here are some links if you want to order some right away. Note, these are the Amazon NEW prices, so some resellers (if you click the links) are selling them for even less than the price I’ve posted.

• GE 13-watt pack of six ($20.52, or $3.42 per bulb)
• Globe mini 23-watt pack of four ($15.99, or $4 per bulb)
• Honeywell mini 23-watt pack of 18 ($54.00, or $3.05 per bulb)

For reference, a 13-watt CFL is the equivalent of a 60-watt incandescent and a 23-watt CFL is the equivalent of a 100-watt incandescent. 

Post from: EveryJoe

Subway and Green Lighting

When you make a purchase using this card, it is grouped into one of 24 categories. You can then log onto a special cardholder website to see the carbon emissions per products/services bought. Your purchases are then offset with investments in forestry, renewables, energy efficiency, and carbon capture projects.

You can read more about this green credit card option from Business Green.

Post from: EveryJoe

New Credit Card for Green Business

When you send an email, it isn’t using paper products, but it is using energy. It might not take much energy to send a single email, but think of all of the emails you send and receive in a year – hundreds, thousands, millions of emails. Even the ocean is made up for drops of water.

I’m not trying to discourage you from sending emails. This is still one of the greenest communication methods, especially if you don’t print emails unless you really need them.

There are even greener options. One of the best I’ve found is an email program run by a company called ThinkHost. The email here is free, much like Gmail, but your emails are sent using 100% renewable energy – wind and solar. ThinkHost purchases green energy certificates to cover ALL of their energy usage (they also offer web hosting, which you should consider). In addition, many of their workers telecommute, saving fuel, and use laptops rather than desktops, which also saves energy.

You can learn more about their green services here.

Maybe I’m just out of the loop, but I had no idea that an green email and hosting company existed. “Green” is such a buzzword these days that some great companies are getting lost in the shuffle. We so commonly think of email as green already, but it is important to always ask “how can we go greener,” and do a little research. You’ll be surprised at the green solutions you’ll uncover!

Post from: EveryJoe

Is Email Green?

Inarguably, though, it can get a little expensive to purchase green coffee. One reader emailed me what I thought was a great tip:

“At our office, everyone who drinks coffee chips in and we take turns buying the better green coffee. We trade off once a week, so everyone only has to buy about ten pots of coffee every three months. If we need more than two pots in the morning, we have a can of generic that we make to hold us over. Whoever buys the coffee gets to pick it – but the only rule is that it has to be green, and if you choose a flavored coffee, you have to also provide a non-flavored option.

That’s a great way to go green in a small business environment if the boss won’t pay the extra money for environmentally-friendly beans.

Of course, if you are the boss, you should consider it, but if you simple don’t have the money in the budget, talk to your employees – if there is interest, you can put a “sustainable coffee fund” empty can near the pot and encourage employees to donate their extra change every so often. Every time the money in the cup covers the extra cost of the green coffee, purchase it! Soon, you’ll probably be surprised to find that you never have to buy cheap non-green coffee.

But enough rambling. Here are some great resources for green coffee:

• Allegro Coffee: http://www.allegrocoffee.com
• Caffe Ibis: http://www.caffeibis.com
• Coffee Pause: http://www.coffeepause.com
• DaSilva fine brazillian coffee: http://www.dasilvausa.com/
• Elan Organic Coffees:http://www.elanorganic.com/
• Green Mountain Coffee: http://www.greenmountaincoffee.com/
• Jeremiah’s Pick Coffee:http://www.jeremiahspick.com/
• Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Co, Inc.: http://www.swisswater.com/

These companies are all a part of the Organic Trade Association! If you have a favorite green coffee, please let us all know about it below in a comment!

Post from: EveryJoe

Green Coffee Resources

Freshëns’ cold cups are made using sustainably-grown, renewable resources, but better yet, the liquid-resistant material used to coat the cups can be consumed by microbes, meaning that you can compost these cups.

“Premiering the first compostable and fully renewable cold cup is an honor for us,” said Freshëns Quality Brands President John Stern. “Though the cup does cost a little more, we believe it is an imperative element not only in our own corporate responsibility but in that of our industry. Freshëns has chosen to make positive decisions to protect and preserve our planet for ourselves and future generations.”

Did you know that individuals alone use over 40 billion paper cups every year in the United States – and that’s not counting the over 25 billion plastic and foam cups also purchased and use. Businesses use even more.

While I’m still an advocate of taking your own coffee mug and water bottle to work, because most companies, at some point, have guests, it is important to stay stocked with disposable cups. Using recycled cups is great, but now Freshëns’ cups now give you an even greener option.

For more information, please visit www.freshens.com.

Picture with permission from Freshëns.

Post from: EveryJoe

Freshëns: Giving Business New Cup Options

One word: Wow.

Maybe my expectations were set low, but the business cards BizCard.com sent me are gorgeous. The best part? They’re green!

The business cards I ordered were “slims.” They’re a little smaller than regular business cards, using 25% less paper, but they still look very professional. Depending on the cards you order, they’re also 30% – 100% recycled paper…but you’d never know it. In addition, keep in mind that BizCard.com buys paper from the Forest Stewardship Council, which certified sources and mills. They recycle ALL of their paper waste, use EnergyStar equipment, and using low VOC solvents and sequence printing to save ink.

That’s not to mention that for EVERY order, the company plants a tree in a Global Releaf ecosystem with America Forests. That means that they plant 100 new trees for every 1 tree they use.

You can read more about the BizCard.com commitment to going green here. They do really nice work, and were a pleasure to work with. If you’re going to order business cards in the next few weeks or months (or years), check out what they have to offer – I can’t recommend them enough!

Post from: EveryJoe

Green Business Cards

Built NY Gourmet Getaway Lunch Tote

JanSport Lunch Break Lunch Box

Vera Bradley Out To Lunch New Colors

Elle Essentials – Sadie Lunch Bag – Brown

I really like the Elle line of lunch bags – they’re under $30 for the most part and really look sharp. In addition to the Sadie version listed above, you can find more cute styles here:

• Nicolette
• Roxie
• Kate
• Cathy
• Tamara
• Mya
• Brynn
• Brittany

And there’s even more, in tons of styles and colors here. Too cute!

Remember, packaging your lunch in reusable containers instead of plastic baggies and paper bags is a much greener option. You’ll save a ton of money, and when you bring a lunch to work instead of buying a lunch at a nearby restaurant, you have the added benefit of being able to choose organic options.

Picture and links all from Amazon.

Post from: EveryJoe

Green Lunch Bag Options

As part of their social responsibility promise, Bizcard is making the following efforts to go green:

• Buying paper from Forest Stewardship Council certified sources and mills with the Green Seal certification
• Producing paper products from 30 – 100% recycled paper
• Using low VOC solvents an sequence printing to save ink
• Recycling 100% of all paper waste
• Using Energy Star equipment throughout the company
• Printing everything on site, rather tan outsourcing the work to non-green companies
• Using digital presses, which eliminate the chemicals used in making plates

Bizcard has also partnered with American Forests to plant trees in exchange for cutting tress down. For every order, Bizcard sponsors the planting of one tree in a Global Releaf ecosystem. That means that for every 1 tree they use, they plant approximately 100 new trees! You can read more about the program here.

Through Bizcard, you can order business cards, magnets, postcards, letterhead, invitations, announcements, thank you cards, note cards, and more! They even offer a new Green Direct Mail campaign to help you reach your clients in amore environmentally-friendly way. That’s good news for business owners.

And here’s even better news – Bizcard is giving away a pack for FREE business cards to one lucky Greener Assets reader! (For more awesome giveaways, check out the Bloggy Giveaways carnival!) They already have tons of free templates, but if you leave a comment below, you could win ANY design from the site, including free shipping.

Might I suggest a “slim” design or the “square” design – these cards use 25% – 45% less paper than traditional business cards.

Here’s the entry guidelines to win:

• You must leave a comment below telling us the product number of the business card/calling card design you want it you win.
• You must use a valid email address (I’ll never share it).
• I’ll contact winners via email – you have 3 business days to respond or I’ll draw a new winner.
• You can get one additional entry by posting about this contest on your blog!
• Comments are open until August 8, 2008 at noon EST!

Start commenting!

Post from: EveryJoe

Win with Bizcard.com!

UK food retailer Sainsbury’s has won the European Retail Solutions Best Green IT Initiative Award 2008 for using simultaneous two-sided thermal receipt printers from NCR Corporation in its store checkouts. Read more here.

Sainsbury reports that they use 40% less paper with their new printers, saving 502,000 rolls of paper every year, and they haven’t even implemented the new printers into all of their stores – they’re only in half of them. That means that this ONE retailed will save over a million rolls of paper every year when the new printers are in all of their stores (which they say will happen within the next two years).

Well duh. It never even occurred to me how much paper I through away in the form of receipts every year. It’s just a little piece of paper – I don’t think about it as I throw it away, but it adds up. Some stores print return policies on the back of their receipts, but really, that could be listed at the bottom of the receipt instead of printed continuously on the back, which would free up the space for a two-sided receipt.

Great pick for the award. I can’t wait to start seeing these in stores around the world. It just makes sense.

This goes to show that green innovation doesn’t have to be costly or crazy. It just takes one good idea to save an entire forest of trees.

Picture from sxc.hu.

Post from: EveryJoe

Two-Sided Receipts