Building a Profitable Business While Helping the Environment

As I approach the age of 31 in a couple of months, I’ve noticed my life is becoming more and more focused on giving back to others than it was before. In my 20s, admittedly and with some shame, I was more focused on myself than others (not entirely!). I suppose this is natural as we age, or maybe I’m just a selfish butthead 🙂.

One of the areas of my life that I’m becoming more and more inspired by is sustainability, environmentalism, and climate change.

I’ve always had a natural inclination to care for the environment. I try not to waste or litter, I don’t use plastic bags for groceries, the first car I bought was an electric car, and more. But lately, I’ve grown more interested in how I can do even more.

Why?

That answer is easy for me:  to leave the world off in a better place than when I was on it. I hear too many people argue two counter points:

1. “I won’t be here when the world goes to shit, so why should I care?”.
   1. Although, objectively, that’s true, that feels, to me, a bit selfish. Sure, I won’t ever know my great great great great grandkids, but it doesn’t mean I can’t try to do my part in extending Earth’s life just a tiny bit more.
2. “We’ll figure it out as a species, as we always have.”
   1. Being a computer scientist myself, I logically can get behind this. But when I visualize what that would look – wearing masks/suits 24/7, having entirely enclosed homes to keep bad air out, not able to swim in fresh water – that’s saddening. We’re so fortunate to be able to openly walk through the forest today, but at our current pace, that won’t be true in the not-so-distant future.

I get it… it’s depressing to think about this doomsday. It’s also something so far in the future, while we all have present day issues like paying bills, taking care of the kids, and more that demand our attention. Why, and how, can we possibly think about solving something when we have all of this to manage already?!

I don’t pretend to have these answers. But I’m inspired to at least try. On a personal level, I try to do the small things like recycling, carpooling, opening the windows vs AC, and so on. But on a professional level, I’m equally motivated to use Rayobyte as a force for good in this word, with one key area being sustainability.

Recently I watched the documentary, Beyond Zero, which is about one of the largest carpet companies in the world, Interface. Interface’s founder and CEO had an awakening late in his career and came to the realization that his company’s impact on the environment was too much. More concerningly to him:  there were no laws or regulations prohibiting him from damaging the environment even more, so there was no seemingly good reason to care about it!

He set out to change that, and that he did. The company not only made incredible strides in reducing their carbon footprint, but grew profitably as a result. This counters how many people view sustainability in business, that it’s an “either or” situation:  make profit OR help the environment. Interface proves that you can do both. Time allowing, you should watch the documentary!

We’re only at the beginning of this journey at Rayobyte, but I aim to set our aims high. Without a doubt, we will be targeting zero carbon footprint with a combination of reduction of our footprint today (more efficient servers, for example), while offsetting via carbon credits for the emissions we simply can’t reduce (unfortunately, there aren’t 100% green data centers. Servers simply take up too much energy).

My hope is that our journey can be one that inspires other business owners and entrepreneurs to do the same… together, we all can make a difference 💪