It’s expensive to NOT go green

There is this misconception that going green is expensive, and it’s probably why a lot of businesses shy away from making their workplace and processes greener. It’s this idea of having to invest in fancy green gadgets like solar panels and high-tech machinery, or opting for higher-cost raw materials or adopting extreme measures that require you to restructure your entire company. These are some of the common reasons why people are reluctant to take giant leaps towards becoming more green, not knowing that you can go a long way by taking just a few steps.

Being in the business field for more than 12 years has taught me that it is more expensive to not go green. To give you an example - my old factory in Sungai Buloh was not properly designed for energy saving, and so our office inside the building required 8 long light tubes to be switched on throughout the entire day. Imagine the amount of electricity needed for 3 office rooms, with each needing the same amount of light? This doesn’t include our production floor, which also required additional lighting due to lack of sunlight. 

Natural resources

When we moved to a new space in Ampang, I made a conscious decision to design our new factory in a way that utilised more natural light. In my current 520 sqft gallery where I usually do my work, we designed big glass windows to allow as much natural light to come in throughout the day except for rainy spells or photoshoots. The amount I save just by adopting a simple green principle has saved me a lot in electricity bills. Living in Ampang myself, our relocation also helped me to reduce my petrol consumption and carbon footprint when travelling back and forth between home and factory.

Zero waste

Another simple approach is moving towards zero waste. For example, at our factory, we don’t throw away our small wood offcuts and residue. Instead, we make products out of them. This includes our wooden phone holders, which has become one of our best-selling items and is a successful example of how waste can be transformed into something profitable. At present, we have a whole collection of products made entirely from our offcuts including jewellery, table accessories, and other unique trinkets. 

My business profited from going green and I hope to inspire more businesses to move towards this direction knowing that it’s not a far-fetched idea and it doesn’t require you to pump in excessive amount of money to adopt greener practices. There are a lot of ways you can make your business greener that doesn’t necessarily require much cost to start with. A 'Proactive Green System' approach to doing business can improve profitability, increase competitiveness, enhance efficiency, and open up new markets for the businesses thus ensuring long term sustainability.

What cost-effective green hacks have you adopted that has benefited your company?