The Benefits of an Environmentally Friendly Business

Consumers alone aren’t responsible for creating a clean environment; businesses must step up to do their part as well. While going green costs time and resources, it’s a smart investment that offers several key benefits.

Improves Public Relations

The public perceives environmentally friendly businesses in a more positive light than their environmentally unfriendly counterparts. Unlike businesses that focus strictly on making a profit, green businesses are conscious about how their actions affect the environment. They go above and beyond to conserve resources, reduce pollution and create a cleaner environment. All of this helps to create a positive image for the business.

Lowers Operating Costs

Reduce, reuse and recycle is a mantra practiced by all environmentally friendly business. Rather than throwing away used boxes or paper, for instance, they’ll recycle them for use in other projects. Not only does this reduce landfill waste, but it also lowers the business’s operating costs.

Environmentally friendly businesses can also lower their operating costs by using fewer resources. Coca-Cola, for example, saved $100 million by redesigning your product packaging with fewer materials. This didn’t have a negative impact on the company’s sales either. On the contrary, the popular beverage maker saw its sales increase after announcing the new environmentally friendly packaging.

Attracts More Customers

According to a survey conducted by Tandberg, 53 percent of consumers prefer buying products and services from environmentally friendly companies. In today’s age, far too many businesses focus on a single goal: to increase profits. They don’t care how their actions affect the environment, nor do they care how the public perceives them. Not all businesses follow this mentality though. Environmentally friendly businesses take a different approach by balancing their actions with the effects it has on the environment. In turn, they reap the benefits of more customers and more sales.

Tax Incentives

Finally, environmentally friendly businesses can take advantage of green tax incentives. In the United States, businesses can deduct 30 percent of the cost of solar installations from their taxes. If a business spends $10,000 on a solar panel installation, this will reduce the amount of taxes they pay by $3,000. The federal government also offers a 10 percent tax credit for geothermal and microturbine power. Some states even have their own tax incentives for businesses that go green.

With environmentally friendly business-to-business (B2B) products and services like those offered by JWA becoming more readily available, there’s no better time than now for businesses to go green. As revealed here, it’s a smart investment that improves the business’s public relations, lowers operating costs, attracts customers and even yields tax incentives.