Practicing Sustainability at Dakota Business Center

Sustainability and Green are buzz words that are heard every day in business. What was once just thought of as an idealistic luxury for most companies, sustainability, is a practice that is starting to affect the bottom line.

As margins get tighter, companies look for ways to save money and go green without compromising quality. The two practices, fortunately, can go hand in hand without huge capital investments.

Some of these green practices include simple everyday habits like turning off lights and computers and utilizing remote PC support services. Second, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized green building certification system that improves energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, indoor environmental quality. Third, reducing waste through recycling and simply using fewer resources can directly increase your profits.

At Dakota Business Center practicing sustainability, includes recycling, cardboard, paper, batteries and toner cartridges. All these services are provided by our vendors and require very little time and are picked up from our location. We recycle an average of 600 lbs of batteries a year and 2 tons of paper and cardboard.

By connecting to a customer remotely using programs like PC Anywhere or GoTo Meeting through a Cisco firewall saves thousands of hours of driving time, gas and emissions for Dakota Business while saving time for the customer. We encourage customers to use these remote services to help reduce commutes and in person sales and service calls.   There are times however when a personal sales call cannot be replaced.

LEED is another service provided at Dakota Business Center that saves companies emissions and money. LEED designs help reduce and improve energy efficiency within facilities by reducing CO2 emissions, water, energy and land usage while improving indoor air quality and profits. LEED design standards are usually implemented during a remodel, building a new facility or investing in new office equipment.

Finally, turning off your computer at night is the easiest way to save electricity.  And depending on the age and type of computer it can save anywhere from $50 to $200 per year per computer. Turning off lights and replacing bulbs with compact florescent bulbs can also save thousands of dollars a year depending on the size of your facility.

While selling a full line of Sharp and Konica Minolta copiers, Dakota Business Center is committed to practicing sustainability. For more information about our services call 605-342-8934.