One NAWBO Business Shares Its Green Initiatives and Wins a Book to Further Their Process

To celebrate Earth Day, NAWBO asked members to write in sharing their business stories of going green. Our publications team then randomly selected a winner to receive a copy of “Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value and Build Competitive Advantage.” Congratulations to NAWBO Member and book recipient Deanne Ross. She writes:

“This past year, I implemented a 90 percent waste reduction goal, and since then, we have reduced our outgoing waste to the landfill each week by between 80-95 percent. Although we are a small engineering firm, we knew that the amount of waste that we were throwing out was mostly recyclable material. Since our deliverable product is printed on paper, we knew that more than 70 percent of our waste was paper. Our paper waste came from plots, specification books, exhibits, copying and paper towels. With only five staff members, we could easily replace the paper towels with cloth hand towels. We purchased a different color for each employee, and gave everyone at least five hand towels to rotate out when needed through the month. With paper towels only being used for visitors, the receptacle in the restroom went from being emptied weekly to once a month.
 
We also purchased large paper recycle bins to place near copying machines and plotters, and then gave each employee an empty paper box for placing recycle in at their desk for easy convenience. We then purchased three more receptacles for the food and beverage containers. Our employees went from tossing out a full trash can each week, to one slightly full can every 3 weeks. All employees have adopted the same practices at home.
 
We also requested all employees to shut off the computers and laptops before leaving. We are not quite sure how much that saved because the utilities are included in our rent. Although we are small, we understand that you are never too small to make a difference.”