How & Why Sustainable Energy Should Power Your Business

Julie Starr • June 16, 2021



We have an incredible shift in the consumer culture of our countries. Lately, the wave of eco-consciousness has overtaken every part of our society. It’s been a long time coming and finally, governments and regulators are paying attention to how consumers are changing. Customers nowadays will be happy to pay more for sustainable natural products rather than cheap and polluting products. The eco-friendly movement has swept into the corporate side of the business too. One of the main focuses is to power businesses, using green energy instead of the methods of old. Here are some of the ways which are gathering pace.

Old but new

Crude oil and natural gas are the two most popular energy types for businesses. Although they are going to be made obsolete by electric methods, they are still very much needed. For one thing, they are cheap and their pollution can be controlled. Modern sustainable oil and gas energy services seem to have cracked the code. This company produces oil and gas using greener methods, which has helped them to stay ahead of the competition. They now supply 5 billion cubic feet a day, to over 700 industrial clients. If you need oil for your business assets such as cargo ships or other types of freight, make sure it’s sourced sustainably. This will allow you to market your business in a more eco-friendly light, which could help to retain customers. 

 

Manufacturing and solar energy

It will come as no surprise to you that manufacturing uses a lot of energy. The main power for manufacturing plants is electricity. However, this electricity is made by oil and gas plants. Rather than wait for other companies to become eco-friendly, you should try to install a hybrid energy approach. Solar PV panels on the roof of your manufacturing plant could help to cut costs, and make your business far more sustainable. By the end of 2016 , solar power officially became the cheapest energy source in the world. In fact, Tesla’s new gigafactory will be powered completely by solar power , such has the technology advanced so quickly. Nowadays, there is no excuse why large flat surfaces on industrial facilities do not have solar panels.

Wind power

If your business is located in rural parts of the country, wind power is never far away. Wind power is a very common energy source for many rural business types, such as those in agriculture, manufacturing, warehouses, and product test sites. You should find out if wind power is being offered near your premises by checking the renewable energy map of your country. It’s quite common for wind power to be one of the first energy options offered to businesses in rural parts, because of its location. Wind power may be stored for city use and may not be used as readily as gas or oil. So as a business, you get priority of wind energy supply.

You need to invest

There’s no other way to get eco-friendly energy off the floor and around the world unless businesses that need energy invest in it. Businesses cannot expect to wait around and hope the government will get their act together and fund green energy projects. This is why Tesla and other major companies are taking on the challenge by themselves. This way, they get multiple advantages such as:

  • They own the IP of new sustainable energy. If you create a brilliant new solar panel to power your business, other businesses will want that tech. Why not sell it to them while owning the rights to the tech itself? This is a great return on investment.
  • You also avoid penalties that governments will impose on polluting businesses. Not to mention, since you are not asking the public purse to be opened for your energy needs, you also get a favorable seat at the government’s table. 
  • The bottom line is, if your business becomes energy self-sufficient, you protect yourself from all sorts of harm. Volatile market prices in oil and gas won’t affect you. You will not have to rely on another energy business to power your business. You’re less likely to be at the mercy of power cuts, etc.

There is no excuse why you cannot utilize green energy for your business needs. Whether you’re in manufacturing or just have offices, you should seek to find out what type of eco-friendly power options you have. The sooner you invest in green energy, the sooner you can make the transition from ‘old’ unclean power to future-proof energy.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.