Here are some tools for measuring your business’ current activities and your green business potential:

• Waste prevention
• Recycling
• Water conservation
• Stormwater pollution prevention
• Green building

Waste Prevention

Download our Office Sustainability Checklist for a comprehensive list of waste prevention opportunities.

Use Environmental Defense's Paper Calculator to compare the environmental impacts of the full lifecycle of different papers. 

Recycling

Trying to expand your recycling program and lower your waste disposal bill? Where do you start?  Performing a simple audit of your waste stream is the best way to identify opportunities to cut costs and increase recycling. Download our Do-It-Yourself Waste Audit Guide, or fill out our online waste audit request form to see if you qualify for a Resource Venture waste audit.

Water Conservation

Measuring your individual water use can be challenging. Contact Resource Venture to help you measure your water footprint.

Stormwater

Guidance Manual for Developing a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan for Industrial Facilities (PDF, 1,846 kb)
A guidance manual developed by DOE to provide and assist operators of industrial facilities with developing a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) that conforms with Ecology's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES).

Stormwater Management Manual for Western Washington
A DOE manual that provides a commonly accepted set of technical standards and guidance on stormwater management measures that will control the quantity and quality of stormwater produced by new development and redevelopment.

Stormwater Management — Record Keeping (PDF, 54 kb)
An EPA fact sheet that describes how to keep records of inspections, spills, leaks or other discharges at your facility. Includes a sample worksheet for tracking spills and leaks.

Green Building

King County’s Recycling Economics Worksheet will help you calculate disposal and recycling costs for construction sites. The worksheet contains separate calculation sheets for commercial-hauling and self-hauling options, as well as samples of completed worksheets.

These benchmarking tools provide evidence that projects have implemented specific green building strategies and can be used by commercial projects in Seattle to demonstrate performance accomplishments.

• Green Factor - Seattle's menu of landscaping strategies to help achieve 30% parcel vegetation coverage required for all new development in Neighborhood Commercial Zones.

• Eco-Charrettes - Many project teams now encourage all design players to develop green goals and strategies collaboratively by holding eco-charettes during a project's design phase.

• LEED for Commercial Buildings - a voluntary, national green building standard and certification system. The City uses LEED as a benchmarking tool with broad industry support.  Also see Green Building Incentives for available LEED and other incentive programs for commercial and multi-family projects in Seattle.

• Implement Design Tool: This sustainable building tool, developed by the City of Seattle, is a practical how-to-tool that assists in implementing sustainable building policy.

• Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC) - a new high-performance and healthy-building initiative developed specifically for health care institutions and facilities.