Being Green is the Way To Be!

Way To Be Designs’ motto is, “We don’t give lip service to sustainability—we’ve built it into our business strategies. It’s an important part of our Way To Be.” They are a full service agency with a range of talented staff, offering creative custom and branded merchandise and uniforms for mid to large size companies with high volume needs.

Aiming to be a more energy efficient office, they took on the task of installing electricity saving features. This included an installation of a motion light sensor in the break room, ENERGY STAR equipment, an upgrade in their heating system, and programmable thermostats. Way To Be Designs is most proud of their internal improvements to replace 107 T-12 lights to T-8 lights. The expected energy cost savings is between 3 - 7% a year as a result of all of their actions.

Moreover, Way To Be Designs’ sustainable business operations include various methods of reducing waste, conserving water, and eliminating toxics. For example, they provide employees with reusable cutlery and water bottles instead of single use plastic ware. They recycle all cardboard, glass, cans, plastic, wooden pallets, ink cartridges, and copier paper, as well as compost food scraps. In addition to installing low-flow faucet aerators and low-flow toilets, they have posted signs in the restrooms and kitchen to encourage water conservation and report leaks. Way To Be Designs purchases many green janitorial products and avoids soap and sanitizers with added antibacterial agents such as Triclosan.

Way To Be Designs lets their clients know where products come from, that products are created in a safe and sustainable manner, and that products are not hazardous to workers or consumers. Most notably, they have demonstrated leadership in sustainability by developing a unique process to recycle used vinyl rooftop banners into useful banner bags. This saved one client from disposing of over 44,000 square feet of material into the landfill! Additionally, Way To Be Designs uses 100% recycled content material for packaging and ships in bulk whenever possible.

Continuing education during their monthly employee team lunch meetings, Way To Be Designs emphasizes the importance of their everyday actions to integrate sustainability into their business operations. Each employee has been provided a recycling bin for paper products and the number of employees telecommuting has increased. For their outstanding efforts, Way To Be Designs became a certified Bay Area Green Business and won an Environmental Achievement Award from the city of Hayward.