I try to be as eco-friendly and "green" as possible in my personal life and it has started to carry over into my business. I would love to hear from other business owners and decorators on what tips or ideas you have to be more earth friendly with our products.

In addition to regular recycling, I order all of my cards and stationary on recycled paper and try to reuse containers that my products come in. Oh, and I save all of my egg shells and give them away to those who use them as fertilizer.

Any other ideas out there?

The thing is, I'm not a cruncher, greenie, eco friendly what-have-you... I do the things that save me money and don't call it "eco friendly" these are things I've always done to save money! (I grew up with a family that valued the lessons of the "Depression Era Mentality") OTOH, I also am a farm kid so know what it's about to be a good steward to the land...

I personally HATE florescent bulbs because of the environmental impact of mercury (can't go fishing regularily anymore because you can't eat the fish because of too much mercury in the water thus the fish... but the other thing is o.k. now we're expecting every Dick and Jane to learn HazMat in case their light bulb breaks and have to figure out what to do when the thing burns out instead of just throwing it in the trash (which IS what 99.9% of all people are still going to do!) whereas the old lightbulbs the glass could arguably be recycled... Out of the five total florescent ones I've been gouged to purchase three have burnt out within the first 3 weeks... then the reality set in that it's TOO COLD HERE for the darn things to work without being left on 24/7.. I'll stick to my dimmer switches and hoard regular bulbs.. Which is another thing, you can't put a florescent light on a dimmer switch so you can have a low amount of light or a high amount depending on a lot of factors.. BUT... when you're not in a room, turn the lights off (imagine how much of our tax money the gov't would SAVE if they just TURNED THE LIGHTS OFF at the end of the work day or put them on a motion sensor - it irks me to no end that I have to drive by the fire hall in the middle of the night, no one around, and EVERY light is on in the place)... Also, have multiple switches so that you can control the brightness of the space. If you don't need it very bright you don't have to pay for the bulbs that will make it really bright in the room.

Buy in bulk... saves you money and less packaging...

Switch to a wood burning outdoor heater/boiler. For pennies on the dollar you can heat your place for less than what the cost of electricity or gas would be and the "eco issues" that surround the production there-of. You also can recycle your paper products, including those that came in contact with food (which can't be recycled in a lot of places), in the wood burner!!! In the grand scheme of the cost of investment versus what you'll save it's the one "eco option" that uses a completely renewable resource and you'll actually get your money back on the investment rather quickly.

Insulate your hot water heater and set it to a hotter setting. By doing this you'll use far less water because you aren't waiting for it to "get hot" and your hot water stays hot longer.

When it's time to purchase your next delivery vehicle, purchase one that has a higher MPG rating. A prius is actually less eco friendly from start of production to its last day on the road than a Hummer, so go by the one variable you can control, the MPG... and the one that you can do the most amount of deliveries in all seasons without the MPG suffering...

Also put your thermostat on a timer... You don't need the extreme temperature controls on certain days of the week. For example, on Monday when you're baking you don't need the temp to be 68 degrees in the middle of summer, it can be higher whereas on decorating days it needs to be that lower temp. OTOH, it's a lot better to get the room chilled down at night and turn the whole thing off during the day as the weather heats up because the cooling from the evening can often be enough to sustain the following day, or at least most of it.

If you have windows, in the summer, pull the shades! This will save you some big $$$$... It not only insulates the window, it also keeps heat out from the rest of the room...

Good luck!