You do not have to be a green business to be green. If you offer regular (non-green) services, you still can be conservation minded in your office, home and how you do business with you clients. I do like it when you see a green twist where we traditionally would see waste. We just got a statement from the student loans that we are paying on and they are “going green” now. So how does a financial institution “go green?” Since postage rates are going up and all businesses are having to make administrative cuts, why not do them and market them as green. This is not green washing. Green washing would be to take a semi-green practice and act as if it were green when it is not completely sustainable. However, if you find a way to do business more effectively, while making a positive impact on the environment, I would expect for you to brag a little if you have any marketing skills what so ever.
Here is a sample of an e-statement that we got. They are saving money on printing and postage and reducing the environmental impact by not using fossil fuels to ship the statements to us. What I love about it, is that it will actually cost us ink and paper to print it and they pulled this off by saying that they are green! Most people would think- how noble of them while they just managed to pass some costs on to us. Yes, I do recognize the reverse psychology, however I don’t mind this since overall we are having a net positive impact by reducing the overall energy that would have been put into mailing them to us.
