Small businesses have a lot of reasons to adopt greener practices. Consumers are more concerned than ever with how eco-friendly the products and services they use are, and the government is moving fast to introduce energy and carbon emissions caps for companies big and small. Most of all, however, "going green" stands to save small businesses a substantial amount of money.

  There are three clear strategies for becoming greener:

• Increase your efficiency (in regards to energy, resources like gas and water, and waste produced)
• Change the types of energy sources you use (consider solar, wind and biofuels)
• Modify your behavior and the behavior of your employees to be more environmentally-conscious.

Learning how to implement these green strategies are important for small businesses.

• Services and devices that can help you track how much energy you are using, how you are using it, and how much you are paying for it in real time.
• Simple and affordable best practices for slashing how much energy you are using every day, how much carbon you emit, and how much waste you produce.
• Government programs you can enroll in to further your green goals.
• How to transition to rooftop solar and other alternative sources of energy at a low cost.
• How to encourage your staff to embrace "going green" as a core value.
• Web tools you can use to keep tabs on your employees' green practices, allowing you to offer appropriate incentives.

The goal of this article is to equip small businesses with a comprehensive set of tools for you to reduce the amount of energy and other resources your company uses. And all of these recommendations are tailored to save you money in office supplies, and more importantly, off your monthly energy bills. Source: verizon.net