Your small business needs a business address, but do you always need a physical office? This is especially true if your company wants to reduce your carbon footprint and be greener. One way your small business can go green is with a virtual office. Thanks to technology, you do not always need to be chained to a desk to conduct your business.

Even many larger companies are now allowing and encouraging their employees to work from home. This is mainly because of technology that allows employees to work remotely, and not have to take up large physical spaces in office buildings. There are now companies that do not have physical office space. Rather, they utilize the services of a virtual office provider to be the hub of their business as well as a centralized telecommuting centre.

Consider how many trees are saved when businesses go paperless (or reduce paper usage) by using electronic documents that can be shared, edited and published with a group of employees who do not need to have a printed copy. For years, most workplaces have been strongly encouraging employees to recycle paper from printing and photocopying devices. Working with a virtual office and cloud storage means less was used in the first place.

Utilizing a virtual office to reduce your carbon footprint can also be ideal when you or your employees do not need to commute. Think of the time spent commuting in cars and the fuel that is consumed on a daily basis. Then consider the time, money and fuel costs that would be saved by “telecommuting” to a virtual office. Even using public transit helps to reduce an office worker’s carbon footprint. The virtual office does away with the need to make the journey to work in the first place.

When a virtual office is not the solution for your small business, consider a shared office in an office business centre that is green friendly with green solutions. There are many business centres that are not only green friendly, but they are located in office buildings that have either been built green friendly or ones that have made changes to be much more green.

Finally, virtual office services are not just for small businesses where everyone works remotely. Telsec has a client who has 10 workers that share a small office with three desks, but not everyone works in the office at the same time. When their customers call them, they are directed to the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) that rings to wherever they are working. They can be in the office, at home or even out of town. The call is delivered to them without the customer knowing that they are away from the office. The same goes when they call a customer. The customer sees the call as coming from the caller’s office.