Small Business is BIG!
SBDC for Enterprise Excellence is teaming up with the City of Arlington’s Green Team.
We recently connected with the City of Arlington’s commercial recycling coordinator and GreenTeam guru to promote green business practices throughout the city. Here’s the brief introduction we wrote for them to publish in this month’s newsletter.
Small business is BIG!
While corporate America has been “downsizing”, the rate of small business “start-ups” has grown, and the rate for small business failures has declined, according to www.EnergyStar.gov. The small business sector in America occupies 30–50% of all commercial space, an estimated 20-34 billion square feet.
The built environment (ie office buildings, stores, etc) generates 40 percent of America’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Alliance to Save Energy.
So, do the math.
The small business sector has a large impact on the US economy and also has an enormous impact on the environment, which means BIG opportunities for improvement. Small businesses can drastically impact greenhouse gas emissions by conserving energy and adopting other environmentally friendly habits. The opportunities to save (money and the planet) don’t end there.
UT Arlington’s Small Business Development Center for Enterprise Excellence offers free energy and environmental assessments. We can help you balance your Triple Bottom Line: Profit, People, Planet and our one-on-one advising is always free.
I’d like to share the TED talk that inspired the theme of this introduction. It’s a talk about a breakthrough in drywall production technology. EcoRock has made some amazing improvements that should be an inspiration to those who are satisfied with status quo.
