Smart Phones Help Small Businesses Go Green

Smart phones can do almost anything these days, from tracking your caloric intake and monitoring your tax return to entertaining you with a game of Scrabble.   Entrepreneurs are embracing mobile device applications as resources to run their businesses better, smarter, faster and more profitability.
The emergence of applications which run our lives is overwhelming.  Think about it. When Apple launched the App Store in 2008, it had approximately 500 applications.  Today there are more than 400,000.

With today being Earth Day,  it  occurred to me, if smart phones are doing so much to make our lives easier, there must also be tools to help us go green.  With a little research, I found I was right.  There are numerous applications which can help you manage your sustainability efforts.

For example, there is an application for the iPhone which permits you to scan in a bar code and receive information about the product’s social responsibility from the application’s database.  There is also the Greenpeace Tissue Guide which is a reference to help you make green buying decisions on items such as tissues, toilet paper, paper towels and paper napkins.

Are your employees worried about the affect of rising gas prices on their paychecks?  You could suggest an app called Avego.  It’s a ride-sharing app that lets a driver offer vacant seats in his or her car to others, or you can use it to search for open seats if you are looking for a ride.  In addition, the app calculates how much gas-money each passenger should pay.

Carticipate is another carpooling resource which consists of a network of participating members interested in carpooling to save gas.  Simply input your destination and Carticipate locates others in your network who are headed in the same direction.
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If your business requires you or your staff to be out on the road, try an application called GreenDrive.  This application helps you increase your business car’s fuel efficiency by providing information on road conditions and real-time driving directions based on the shortest route possible.  The app claims it can save you an average of 15 – 25 percent on fuel costs.

Whatever your company’s green efforts are, make sure you communicate them to your employees and stakeholders.  Your sustainability initiatives provide a competitive advantage for your business and they make an important statement about your brand.
Mobile applications will continue to change the way we do business — including our green initiatives.  In fact, a 2009 report issued by Juniper Research found that downloads of green mobile applications could exceed 400 million by 2014.  Make sure you are taking advantage of these applications to help your sustainability efforts.