Are You a Green Affiliate?
Thanks for visiting the Affiliate Tip blog. Subscribe to my RSS feed or enter your e-mail on the top left to get updates by e-mail.
The latest issue of the Commission Junctions newsletter for affiliates had an interesting bit in there from Kerri Pollard, General Manager of CJ, about going green in our business lives.
This is something that has been on my mind lately, since myself and so many affiliate marketers work from home and have control over their work spaces.
So to varying degrees, we can determine the impact we have on the environment.
Some suggestions from Kerri…
One thing that publishers can do is support and promote businesses with a commitment to the environment. Taking a quick search through the “Get Links” section of the CJ Account Manager (start with keyword “environment”) will yield some great examples of these businesses. But that’s just one way to help out.
There’s a good chance that many of you run home-based businesses, so obviously not commuting helps the environment in many ways. I’m sure most of you take this one step further by shopping online instead of driving and possibly by conducting your business meetings online or on the phone.
Good points, Kerri. My way of doing business automatically helps the environment, but I could certainly do more – perhaps starting with not keeping my computers, printer, copier, fax machine, power backup, monitors, external hard drives, etc. on 24/7.
Gotta run… or rather walk… to the bank and post office now.
- Posted in Affiliate Opinions
11 Comments
-
On April 29 @ 6:04 pm posted[...] Are You a Green Affiliate? [...]
-
On June 3 @ 6:16 pm posted
[...] and runs a series of conferences about Affiliate Marketing. Shawn wrote a blog post about Green Affiliate Marketing and subsequently ordered some really nice die-cut stickers from us that we printed one-color on a [...]
-
On June 29 @ 3:56 pm posted
[...] to see. A little more than a year ago, the CJ newsletter urged affiliates to focus on green affiliate programs, [...]
Great post especially given the rising prices of gas and food.
I am trying hard to make a difference and hope we as affiliates and affiliate managers can do our part.
cougarmark
reply to this commentGood morning, Shawn:
I'm gonna check out the green issue of the CJ newsletter. Working from home make us quite eco friendly, in terms of travel, office energy usage, office supply expenses, etc.
I believe this is why more and more corps are incorporating some sort of telecommuting program for some of its workers.
This gives me an idea for a post, “10 Things a Self-Employed Person Can Do To Be Even More Green”.
Thanxs for the heads up on the CJ newsletter!
Missy.
reply to this commentI'm not to the point where I don't have to drive. But my goal is to get there by the end of the year. I may start biking again…
reply to this commentExcellent Post Shawn. I don't think many in the work at home category correctly estimate the impact their work can have on the environment. There are lots of things we can do besides saving paper to be a little more eco-friendly.
reply to this commentThere are SO many things that can be done to help the environment.
By being people who work from home, we automatically reduce the amount of pollution we contribute.
But my wife and I have been researching this a lot for a new book we're writing, and here are some other great tips we've discovered…
- Leave the computer on when you plan to come back to it, but if you're going away from it for more than 30 minutes, at least put it in standby. If you're going away from it for longer than four hours, shut it off. According to a study done by the London based software company 1E, a mid-sized company will waste more than $165,000 a year in electricity costs for computers that have been left on overnight. “By turning these computers off, an employer can keep more than 1,381 tons of carbon dioxide (C02) out of the atmosphere.” If you still plan to leave your computer on all day and night, at least let it use it's overconsumption of energy to process data (when you're not using it) coming from satellites and radio telescopes for distributed computing projects like SETI@home and Einstein@Home
- Get rid of your airduster – that can of “compressed air” which is traditionally marketed as being environmentally safe. According to TreeHugger.com, “the contents are [...] horribly bad for the environment. Some of them use 100 percent tetrafluoroethane, a known greenhouse gas that is roughly 3,300 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide [...] a 10-ounce can of cleaner will have the same climate-changing effect over the next 20 years as burning at least 100 gallons of gasoline. That's one can. The other common gas in these things is difluoroethane, which has about 10% of the impact as other variety. [...] still about 330 times the impact of CO2.” What should you use instead? Well, you could try Giotto's Rocket Air Blower.
- Use your own mug, rather than a disposable styrofoam or paper cup, when getting coffee in the office or at coffee shops on the way to/from work.
- Did you know that the average US worker uses 12,000 sheets of paper per year? Paper accounts for roughly 40% of all municipal solid waste in the United States. Whether you work in an office or telecommute from home, chances are you use a lot of paper. It only costs us $4/month to have our trash company come and pick up paper (and lots of other stuff) once every 2 weeks for recycling.
- This isn't as big of a deal for us that work from home, but how often do you go to a coffee shop? Could you use your own mug, rather than a disposable styrofoam or paper cup, when getting coffee in the office or at coffee shops on the way to/from appointments/work?
These are just a few of the hundreds we've discovered.
Thanks Shawn!
Jonathan
reply to this commentGreen all day and night…..work from home as well
reply to this commentGreen all day and night…..work from home as well
reply to this commentWhen I was working from home, I think I got the biggest “green” bang for the buck recycling paper. Unfortunately, my employment role forced me to print and fax quite a bit of paper throughout the day. I set a specific plan and was able to set aside all qualified paper for recycling. The city I worked in even had a recycling container that you could set out on the curb for pick-up once a week. I used the container for a number of recycling purposes, but paper was my single largest contribution.
reply to this comment