Sometimes, “Green Living” gets a lot of attention on recycling paper and cans - but businesses can do a lot more to “Greenify” their work-flow, and usually save a good amount of cash in the process. 20 years ago, it cost businesses and consumers more to live green. Happily, that’s not the case anymore!

Today is Blog Action Day, in which the blogging community is helping to focus awareness on the Environment. And to help the cause, this blog is donating 100% of the commissions received today to The Nature Conservancy from all sales from any of the companies highlighted below.

So what can your business, big or small, do more to prevent Global Warming?

1. Work at Home & Telecommute

   A no-brainer! Present full-time home business owners & telecommuters save approximately 4,439 million gallons of gas per year. If businesses could allow their employees to work at home even one day a week, we could make a measurable impact on reducing carbon emissions from cars (not to mention the measurable impact on your pocketbook!).

2. Do the Paperless Polka

   Personally, I can’t stand using paper anymore - quite honestly, it either messes up my house, I lose it, or I have to file it (and you don’t even want to know how infrequently I do that!). Keeping electronic records not only makes things easier for you, but it is GREAT for our forests. Great paperless products include Adobe Acrobat for creating PDFs and eFax which sends and receives faxes via email.

3. Play del.icio.us Tag

   I used to print out things I wanted to save for later. No more! Now I use del.icio.us to organize my bookmarks, never again having the need to dig around in paper piles.

4. Meet Virtually

   Unless an in-person meeting is required, why bother leaving the office when there are so many easy ways to conference online? Skype offers free calls AND free conferencing, and if you need visuals, try a service like GoToMeeting, a provider of online meeting and collaboration software.

5. Reduce Snail Mail

   Most companies offer an electronic alternative to notifications traditionally sent out by mail, especially when it comes to invoicing. Request that all communications be sent via email rather than snail mail to reduce the paper sent to your business. And to ensure you don’t get a swamped email inbox, use email filtering to automatically send incoming messages to their proper folders.

   Additionally, Earth Class Mail is a new service that will act as a virtual PO Box and forward only the most necessary items. It may not reduce the paper getting sent your way, but it will help you to organize everything electronically.

6. Do More E-Marketing

   Many businesses, especially local businesses, don’t realize that the internet is such a powerful driver of sales and leads - right down to the zip code level. Even better, many of the ways to market online are ridiculously cheap or free. There’s a time and place for a fancy brochure - but I’ve found blogs to be an extraordinarily powerful business tool, and they are a heck of a lot cheaper to create!

7. Get a Green PC

   I just found out about these computers in my research for this post - and what a killer find! Zonbu PCs consume one tenth of the power of a normal desktop, plus stores all of your data on their servers, so you don’t even need a hard drive (nor do you have to hear it - these PCs run completely silently!). To make things better, they are ridiculously cheap - as in less than $100.

8. Stay Informed

   There are excellent resources to learn more ways to improve your green efforts that are specific to your industry. Both GreenBiz.com and SustainableBusiness.com are free news & learning resources with some seriously great content.

9. Get More Free Green Tips

   Ideal Bite is an eco-living newsletter that sends short and sweet email tips for both home and business - and they even have editions just for San Francisco and New York.

10. Shop at TheGreenOffice

    From recycled paper to recycled ink, and from green technology to earth-friendly industrial cleaning products, TheGreenOffice has it all. They also offer free delivery on orders over $49 and a link to find local recyclers. And remember, if you buy anything from TheGreenOffice today, 100% of eMoms at Home commissions go to The Nature Conservancy!

    (Quick note, TheGreenOffice page seems to be taking a little while to load - please be patient!)

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