Spotlight On...AC Ellis Photography

GP: How green is your business - what green business practices do you embrace?

CAE: Not green enough. I've done some big things around the home (I have a home-office), but most of the progress has been with the little things. We reuse and recycle everything we can. We also try to use packaging that can be used again, for instance we have our own custom reusable shopping bags for delivering products to clients and simplified our packaging components. Less items means less waste. Our most important business practice is our on-going effort to create a paperless office. We do not print brochures, rate sheets, faq's, questionnaires or anything like that, they are all delivered digitally. All magazine subscriptions have been cancelled, all bills have been requested to be delivered digitally, and all items that were previously in our filing cabinet are now scanned and stored in our digital filing cabinet. We are still in the process of converting all of our archived documents to digital format, but we are getting there. Our one current hold up on going all paperless is a digital contract, it will come soon though.

GP: How green are your products - what green products/components do you offer?
CAE: We use many products from Cypress Albums. Cypress is a very green company and they produce our favorite products. Our lab is American Color Imaging and while they haven't fully embraced going green they are making baby steps. They do allow shipping via USPS since they already come to our door everyday that is less gas for delivery. They are also located in our are of the country, so again less gas for delivery. I hope to see them continue their progress. Those are our main two vendors, we try to keep our product offerings simple.

GP: Why did you choose to offer green products and implement green business practices?
CAE: I chose to implement green business practices because I feel it is the responsible thing to do. We all need to do our part even if it's just a little bit, it all adds up. I think it's also a very important trait to teach our children.

GP: How has offering green products and implementing green business practices affected your company?
CAE: Because I haven't really announced our plan to go green to the public I don't feel it has had much impact fiscally through customer approval. Internally however being green is just good for the conscience and by streamlining everything into a paperless office as well as scaling back packaging efforts we have saved the business money and time. There is less ordering of items, less waste, less time spent looking for things and packaging things. The paperless office allows for off-site back-ups and easy reference to all pertinent materials. Internet access to digital files for the business allows customers to have our information at their fingertips as long as they have internet. This client communication is a great way to keep your client informed and saves time answering the plethora of questions that are sure to arise.

GP: What are your hopes for a greener photographic industry?
CAE I hope that not just in the industry but in life people will take responsibility and do the little things. As individuals begin to make a difference I think that corporations (our vendors) will as well and it's a snowball effect that we can only benefit from.

GP: What is your favorite eco website or eco-product that we may not have heard of?
CAE: I honestly do not have a favorite eco website, but my favorite product are those by Cypress Albums!

Thanks so much to Cory Ann Ellis of AC Ellis Inc. for taking the time to answer our questions!  If you have an idea for a Spotlight feature or interview, let us know!