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A common misconception about going “green” is that it’s costly, but Jim Harris, a management consultant and green technology columnist for the National Post, believes there are simple, inexpensive ways to implement green initiatives and if done wisely it can generate more profit than most traditional investments.

Although companies around the world are jumping on the green bandwagon and sinking millions into energy efficiency projects, becoming a more efficient company can be as simple as powering down during off-peak hours, sourcing eco-friendly alternatives or streamlining a production process.

Cool savings

One easy green conversion is simply painting a black roof white.

Many manufacturers operate in a flat roof environment. These roofs are often tarred black, which attracts a great deal of heat. On a 32 degrees C day in the summer, a black roof could hit 87 degrees C. Harris says if that roof was white it would only be 43 degrees C.

And since facilities such as this often install HVAC units on the roof, air intake of the unit is pulling the hot air in and then cooling it to 22 degrees C.

“This is a huge waste of energy,” says Harris. “To paint a 100-square- meter roof [for example] white costs about $250 and your [electrical] savings are going to be about that much per year.”

Even when building a flat roof facility, there is no cost differentiation between a black or white roof.

Company culture

By creating an environmentally conscious workforce, firms can engage employees in a company-wide culture striving for better efficiencies. This opens the door to a leaner and greener production environment.

Kitchener-based Christie Digital Systems Inc., a manufacturer of visual solutions such as projectors, not only looks at the energy efficiency its digital projector systems deliver to customers, but it also measures the energy consumption used to produce its products and energy consumption per employee.

“We have special parking spots for carpoolers and a work week consisting of four 10-hour days, which reduces employee commute time by 20 per cent,” says Ihor Stech, vice-president of operations. “It’s more efficient for production because you have fewer stops and starts than a typical work week. And every weekend is a long weekend for our production crew and they’re not complaining about that.”

Christie also changed the way it packaged its products by switching from wood pallets to cardboard pallets, which are easily recycled—customers simply discard the materials.

Consolidate systems

Many companies already try to save energy by powering down computers during non-working hours. Although this effort does chip a little off the electrical bill, computers and other electronics still use “standby power” when turned off, continuously sucking energy from the grid.

In one of Harris’ recent columns, he says “electronic devices that are turned “off” are stealing more than $1-billion a year of electricity from Canadians.”

For companies that use multiple servers, a more effective way to decrease energy consumption is to consolidate systems using “virtualization.”

Instead of running multiple systems and servers, virtualization allows multiple machines to operate on the same physical platform.

According to Harris, IBM recently took 3,900 servers and put them on 33 mainframes, which essentially are big, powerful computers. Consolidating the servers increased the utilization rates by more than 80 per cent.

“They reduced their electricity use by more than 80 per cent and they reduced their square footage of the data centers by 85 per cent,” says Harris, who recently co-authored an energy and environment white paper for IBM. “With this initiative, IBM will save about a half a billion dollars and five billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year by 2012.”

Moving your data to a green web hosting provider can significantly reduce your electricity consumption and carbon emissions produced to operate your website.

Rob Wilson of TechHost (www.techhost.biz), says that "the average server produces the same emissions as a 15 mpg SUV." "A green hosting business will take steps to minimize their environmental impact at the office, use more efficient servers, and purchase wind powered certified Renewable Energy Credits." "All of our virtual servers are now 130% wind powered. We’re not just neutralizing our environmental impact, we’re reversing it."

The global demand for industry to become more energy efficient is stiffening. Responding to that demand could pay big dividends for companies willing to make the transition.

Can you think of any other economical ways to green your business? What have you tried?