Challenge participant Plow & Hearth celebrated Earth Day with Better World Betty and recognized the employee winner of Betty’s Home Menu 30-day challenge!

We had a packed house on Thursday (April 24) as we hosted Marijean Jaggers for a lesson on using social media to boost connections with customers.

If you missed it, don’t worry; we’ve got the 5 top take-aways right here:

1. Small businesses that blog receive 55% more visitors to their website than those that don’t. Blogging helps improve your search engine optimization (SEO), which can drive more traffic to your site by boosting where you show up in search results.
2. Your website should be your “home base.” It should be what you focus on perfecting before branching out onto other platforms, and you should always link back to your website when posting content on social media platforms.
3. Develop a schedule for posting content. Only post as often as you can maintain high-quality content, but try to post on a regular schedule – consistency generates more loyalty.
4. Drown bad press with your own content. If negative content pops up about your business, the best way to fight it is to publish more of your own new content, which will outweigh the negative content and push it down in Google search results.
5. You don’t have to do everything! Don’t stretch yourself too thin. Only develop a presence on those social media platforms where you can really dedicate some quality time and content.

BONUS Take-away: Take advantage of the many great, paid social media tools out there. If you want help monitoring multiple accounts on Facebook and Twitter, tracking conversations related to your product/industry, or gathering stats on impressions and engagement check out Sprout Social. If you want help expanding your reach, try strategically boosting your posts on Facebook.

Teri Kent also gave a quick summary of the final scorecard and documentation process. Find a detailed overview here.

Still have questions? Send us an email at [email protected].

Here is a grading system mostly using EWG’s Guide to Cleaning Products as the primary tool. It is the only public tool that shows you what they know about the ingredients and rates the problematic chemicals individually. A lot of these products have green certifications, sometimes you still need to dig further.

Click on the image or here for the PDF.

Top 5 takeaways from Lunch n Learn

1.) You need a starting line—Benchmark! Use your bills, $ per sq. ft., total kwh, max kw, CO2 footprint
2.) Then analyze: seek to understand how you are using energy, how that use differs from similar buildings, how you are paying for it, what patterns exist?
3.) Which light bulb is the most efficient? The one that is off!
4.) If you can’t turn it off, turn it down!
5.) Control is Key! —Better control = less maintenance, less energy, more comfort, happier people

Information about recycling batteries and light bulbs at Charlottesville’s local Batteries+Bulbs store. Includes a list of what they recycle, additional services, and costs.

Especially for restaurants, check out these energy efficiency and conservation recommendations by Laura Piraino, the Energy Education Manager and the Green Restaurant Initiative.

The Money Savings Menu: An Energy Efficiency and Conservation Education Program for Restaurants

New for the 2013-2014 Challenge: Energy Benchmarking Tool

For the 2013-2014 Better Business Challenge, LEAP created a very simple and easy energy benchmarking tool that will help give your business an general idea of how you are using energy….if you are average, wasting energy, or efficient…this will be compared to similar building uses in the Southeast.

You only need three inputs:

1. Building Use (easy…office, retail, lodging, medical, etc.)

2. Square Footage of your building/space

3. Total annual energy bill (preferable broken out by gas and electric, but a breakout is not totally necessary).

Using the CBECS data (2003 Commercial Building Energy Survey data from the US Energy Information Administration) and general rules of thumb, this tool will estimate annual savings potential, energy efficiency project estimates to get those savings, payback, and potential added value to your building for lowering energy costs.  It will give you a rough idea of where your space stands and can be useful in showing your staff and leadership the value of energy efficiency.  A next step would be to have a LEAP contractor come provide more accurate assessments.

Access the Energy Benchmarking Tool here.

The “Trim Your Waste” Lunch ‘n Learn this past Thursday was a tremendous success! Our speaker and panelists shared so much insight and knowledge – we will never look at waste the same way again! In case you missed the event (or you didn’t take as many notes as you wanted), here are the five biggest takeaways from the event:

1. There’s room for improvement. The U.S. produces 250 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) each year. Of that, only 25.9% is recycled and 8.1% is composted. That means there is still plenty more that we can be doing to reduce waste that is sent to landfills.
2. Recycling is only beneficial if there is a use for the end product. SO, we need to be mindful of the recycling possibilities for our products when we purchase them.
3. Rethink waste. Re-evaluate institutionalized purchasing and waste practices. Ask yourself if you can replace single-use items with reusables. Ask yourself if you really need all of the items you are purchasing – can you reduce the amount you purchase in the first place? Seek out compostable products – and then actually compost them! Evaluate your purchasing policies, and then edit them to incorporate any sustainable measures you can take on.
4. Implement changes and make them easy to adopt. Find ways to make sustainable waste practices easy for your employees to adopt.
   • Gamification is a great way to boost employee involvement and commitment by making sustainability fun.
   • Relying on purchasing tools like EPEAT makes it easy to find and evaluate green purchasing options.
   • Posting effective signs for composting and recycling programs can make a big difference in effectiveness by making it clear what products can be composted or recycled. GreenBlue advises companies to make signs that feature pictures and/or samples of packaging for each bin and to group bins together so that trash, composting, and recycling are all easily accessible.
5. Think about the long term. Implementing sustainable practices may include an up-front cost, but be sure to analyze the long-term cost-savings they could help you realize. For example, we talked a lot about composting – composting service requires an additional fee; but when implemented, a composting program will reduce your waste, which cuts down on haulers’ fees (which are more expensive than the composting fee). In the long run, composting saves money and resources – it’s a win-win.

Most importantly, just start with something – anything! There are so many ways to make your business’ operations more sustainable that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Pick something that will be easy to implement, find success, and increase your efforts little by little. Over the long run, it’ll make a big difference!

Looking for more information on reducing your waste? Check out the “Waste” Resources section on the Challenge website. Specifically, check out the Waste Scorecard for easy recommended actions, local waste resources, and other waste tools (e.g. an Excel list of local providers for waste and recycling disposal or a useful glossary of waste terms). If you’ve still got questions, reach out to us at [email protected]!