At Greenling, we are not just dedicated to supporting Organic and local farming-- we are also very proud to be an environmentally friendly company. Check out some of the many efforts we take to help work towards a sustainable future—you might just get some ideas to use for yourself!

Energy Consumption

Delivery

Because we delivery so many boxes and we only go to each part of town once a week, our delivery vans are actually incredibly energy efficient. We started with the Dodge Sprinter, which is the most fuel-efficient cargo van available in the US. Then we stuff each one with as many as 100 bins for delivery. That truck driving around in town and dropping deliveries actually uses 86% less fuel than our customers driving to the grocery store and back themselves. Crazy, I know, but it's true and we can show you the math.
 

Office

Greenling moved into a space that is normal for office/warehouses with some cheap walls for the office and some very high ceilings outside of the office space. One of the first things Greenling did was have the City of Austin come out and do an energy audit and we signed up for a couple of their Power Program offers -

Lighting efficiency

The City came out and replaced all of our lighting with high-efficiency lights at a reduced cost. This enabled us to start saving energy and money immediately on our electric bill.

Power Partner Thermostat

We signed up to receive their programmable thermostat for our office air conditioner. This allows us to save more energy by having the system automatically shut off when we're not at the office. Also, the system allows the city to cycle us off for short periods when energy consumption is peaking. Supplying energy at peak times can cost the city up to 100 times more than non-peak times and often requires the usage of older, dirtier power plants. Reducing peak consumption is the most effective way to help curb energy costs and pollution. Everyone should sign up for this program, residential and business, in Greenling's humble opinion.

GreenChoice Renewable Electricity

All of our electricity comes from renewable resources, primarily wind power in west Texas. Wind energy converts kinetic energy that is present in the wind into more useful forms of energy such as mechanical energy or electricity. Wind energy is a pollution-free, infinitely sustainable form of energy. It doesn't use fuel; it doesn't produce greenhouse gasses, and it doesn't produce toxic or radioactive waste.

Website Hosting

Did you know you could help the environment with your website as well? We use Aiso.net for our website hosting and they are 100% solar-powered. And not they kind where the buy energy credits. They straight-up have 120 solar panels all over their property that will eliminate the production of:

• 19,890 lbs of Carbon Dioxide (CO2/GHG) per year
• 5.9 lbs of Nitrous Oxide (NOX/smog) per year
• 0.45 lbs of Sulfur Dioxide (SO4/acid rain) per year

This is the equivalent of planting 3.5 acres of trees per year!

Recycling, Reduction, and Reuse

Greenling strives to recycle and reuse everything we possibly can. This is an area where everyone contributes. Here are some things Greenling does that other companies may not be doing (but should!):

• We only use recycled paper for all of our printing
• We recycle all possible waste from the office (paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, metals)
• All of the cardboard boxes we receive from vendors are recycled
• We recycle much of our office paper in the baskets we send out! - We shred clean office paper and use it as padding and insulation for our deliveries. This is the most cost-effective recycling for paper possible.
• We recycle old technology equipment (computers, printer cartridges, copiers)
• We never throw away batteries (we always take them to the household hazardous waste facility)
• We often work with the main office lights off......if it's bright out, there's usually enough sun to light our lobby
• All of our furniture is used - why create new stuff when there are so many good things out there already
• Turbo-charged diesel delivery vans.....while our trucks don't allow us to go bio-diesel, we have the most fuel efficient delivery vehicles on the market!
• We have water jugs that people refill glasses with - plastic water bottles are becoming one of the biggest polluters out there and one day at the Austin Clean Sweep will motivate you to never throw away another plastic or Styrofoam bottle/cup again.
• We try to never use plastic kitchenware. Only reusable stuff for us, please

Chemical Free Products

We specifically told our landlord not to come near our facility with their outdoor chemical pest-control. For this we had to submit our pest-control plan for their approval since we're part of a larger office park. We use Envirocare organic for our indoor and outdoor pest control. Additionally, non-toxic cleaners are used whenever possible.