It’s a simple equation: larger companies make a larger environmental footprint. With consumer audiences worldwide becoming aware of climate change and putting ever more pressure on large businesses to do their part to slow environmental degradation, the benefits of making your business eco-friendly far outweigh any financial costs. An advantage of working in a large corporation is the equivalently large influence you’ll yield by committing to becoming eco-friendlier. In case you needed further convincing to go forth and be green, we’ve listed four of the key benefits below:   Approval from your customer base With the electronic car industry booming, vegetable-based diets gaining popularity, and global warming becoming a heated political issue, today’s ‘woke’ generation won’t support companies who refuse to use their influence and power to help the environment. Companies who choose to care, on the other hand, are often rewarded with a growing customer base. Take Danone, the major French food company in charge of brands like Evian. In recent years, Danone rolled out a comprehensive environmental strategy for addressing its carbon emissions, directed by the end-goal of being carbon neutral by 2050. Danone worked with leading scientists and used the guiding frameworks of the GHG Protocol Corporate Standards to develop its strategy – of which the four main pillars are emission reduction, carbon sequestering, the elimination of deforestation, and the offsetting of remaining emissions. What’s fantastic for customers is how transparent Danone has made their initiatives by regularly updating its online platforms with tangible, statistical evidence.  By providing constant progress on its identified pillars of change, Danone’s advertisement of eco-friendliness is a role model for all businesses. An Eco-friendly culture within your industry or community Partnering with other environmentally-minded businesses in your area or beyond can be a wonderful way to both build your corporate network and yield new solutions to your community’s waste issues. For example, you might partner with other businesses to collect organic or food waste from places like factories and restaurants and recycle them into useful products.  Helping to tackle waste at this pre-consumer stage can help divert significant volumes of organic or food waste from becoming leachate, and it’ll far improve your company’s rep within the community.   Improved products and services Some CEOs of larger businesses avoid implementing eco-friendly measures because they believe their product will suffer for it. However, just because your current system has always worked for you, it doesn’t mean a new – and more environmentally conscious – method won’t work just as well. In fact, eco-friendly systems may even work better, as the success of green cleaning-products brand Seventh Generation demonstrated via its commercial triumph over established brands like Clorox. After recruiting some innovative, eco-friendly minds to help with your new environmental initiatives, you could be on your way to that product breakthrough your business has needed for years.  Inspired customers Some of your customers may want to reduce their environmental footprint but don’t know where to begin. For them, having a consumer relationship with your company could be the exposure they need to get started in the right direction. Thus, go beyond simply implementing eco-friendly measures to improve your marketing campaigns and long-term financial success – and make a broader political statement by educating consumers on how they can transform their attitude and actions toward the environmental. Publish articles that bring your fellow eco-friendly companies into the spotlight, engage in ecology and environmental politics topics via social media, and invest in worthy local, national and international causes to do with nature. In essence, be a sustainable company because you take your social responsibility seriously, and you’ll encourage your customers to follow suit. Cloe Matheson is a freelance writer from Dunedin, New Zealand who loves researching and writing about a broad range of topics, including business, sustainability, and green living. To know more about Cloe, visit her Tumblr page.