[Editor's note: This article originally appeared as a guest post on Marc Gunther's blog, and is reprinted with permission.

Small businesses employ more than 52 percent of working Americans, according to the Small Business Administration, and comparable percentages in other developed countries. It follows that small businesses generate a substantial portion of the business world's environmentally harmful waste. To help small business owners and employees minimize their environmental impact, here are 20 simple ways to more sustainably market a small business. I hope that you'll contribute your thoughts -- what I've gotten right and wrong and what I've omitted -- in the comments.

• 1. Print all marketing materials on recycled paper. Whether you're going to send out flyers, pamphlets or other marketing literature, make sure it's on recycled paper.
• 2. Hold your meetings remotely. As you meet with your colleagues, including external vendors, try to hold as many meetings as possible over the Internet. Try tools like Skype, TokBox and other free videoconferencing technologies.
• 3. Send email instead of paper newsletters. Not only will you save money by switching to an email marketing service, but you'll also do far less damage to the environment. Even better from a business standpoint is that email marketing provides huge insights into how your marketing efforts are being received that printed flyers cannot. For instance, email marketing services can generally tell you what percentage of your emails were opened, how long they were opened and which links were clicked.
• 4. If you're going to use paper flyers, make sure you clearly indicate that they are recyclable. A comedian named Mitch Hedberg had a joke about paper flyers: He used to joke that when someone on the street shoves a flyer in your hand, it's as if they said, "Here, you throw this away." He wasn't far from the truth. But if you absolutely must print paper flyers, make sure you clearly print the phrase "This flyer is recyclable" on the backside. Though it may be obvious to some, many people need that instantaneous reminder.
• 5. Buy marketing materials locally. This will minimize the shipping costs both to your business and to the environment.
• 6. Use GreenSeal.org products in your marketing efforts. In Green Seal's own words, Green Seal uses "life cycle-based sustainability standards for products, services and companies and offer[s] third-party certification for those that meet the criteria." They've done the sourcing. All you have to do is choose from the products they've already certified.
• 7. Sell online. While that might sound obvious, many small businesses still don't sell their products online. Selling online is a must both for your business and the environment. It instantly expands your customer base from just your local neighborhood to the entire world (in addition to allowing you to sell products passively 24 hours a day). All of this is also great for the environment; this means that you can sell more products with fewer people having to drive to your store. While some might argue that this will increase the impact from shipping, the power to ship greenly is within your control (we'll get to that).
• 8. Buy promotional products that directly encourage green behavior. For example, instead of buying branded bottled water in disposable bottles -- a growing trend -- order branded reusable coffee mugs or branded reusable water bottles. Not only will you avoid adding to the over 2.5 million plastic water bottles that are used every hour by people in the United States alone, but your marketing message will be put in front of people's eyes for far longer, as your coffee mugs and/or water bottles will be reused.
• 9. Visit TheGreenOffice.com. TheGreenOffice.com is an ecommerce website that allows you to purchase all types of green-certified office products, many of which you'll need for nearly any form of offline marketing.
• 10. Explore using reusable envelopes and/or recycled post-consumer content envelopes in your next direct mail campaign. The leading reusable envelope brand is EcoEnvelopes.com.