As an eco-conscious consumer, you know how important ecologically-responsible business practices are. And you can use your buying power as a customer to encourage those practices by choosing environmentally-friendly businesses over conventional businesses. It's important that you don't become an environmental snob and shun a business just because its eco-friendly efforts aren't perfect yet; that would be the opposite of encouraging. But you can generally tell, if you've been a customer for a while, whether your self-storage business is making sincere efforts to help the environment or not. Here are three signs that the business may be just paying lip service to the idea or maybe even doesn't have its environmental philosophy up to speed yet.

1. It doesn't facilitate donations and recycling

One of the unique opportunities a self-storage facility has is to help customers dispose of belongings responsibly when they no longer wish to keep those items. Recycling and donation are two great ways to do this. An environmentally-friendly facility may have a donations drop-off location within the facility itself where you can leave donations so you don't have to make an extra stop on the way home. Recycling bins of all kinds should also be available at the facility. And because cardboard boxes and other packing materials are so frequently used in storage, another way the facility can help is by providing a way for customers to share or re-distribute used packing materials. So if your facility doesn't do any of these things yet, it probably has an update coming.

2. It doesn't educate customers about eco-friendly options

An eco-friendly facility should be proud of its status and of the eco-friendly options available. If you can't find information online or at the facility itself (in the form of brochures, posters, and other promotional material) about what the business is doing to help the environment and how to make the most of an eco-friendly storage facility, you should be a little suspicious of any "eco-friendly" claims it makes. 

3. It hasn't developed a plan to "green" big facility aspects like energy and roofing 

Everyone has to start somewhere, so if you don't see as much evidence as you'd like of environmental responsibility, it's fine to ask the business what they have planned for the near future. Some of the first big eco-friendly improvements that businesses often make include installing eco-friendly lighting, sourcing green energy, and making roofs more eco-friendly as well as conserving water and energy. (Perhaps this is because these moves are also cost-efficient and can sometimes even save money for the business in the long run.) If the business doesn't even claim to be working on these large issues, it may not really be wholeheartedly committed to improving its ecological footprint.

Use these three signs to help you assess whether the self-storage facility you've been using is living up to its claims of environmental responsibility or if it may need a gentle nudge in that direction. You can use your power as a customer to encourage the business to take a look at some eco-friendly business practice ideas. Contact a company like Econo Storage for more information.