According to Yahoo! Finance, 32% of customers are willing to pay extra for a product, if it is nature-focused, while for 66% of them, sustainability is among the top five purchase-decision factors.

Cut on power us

The first and easiest way for small businesses to become more nature-friendly is to reduce their power use, according to Casey Donahue, founder of Optiwatt, a tech company that helps EV-owners lower electricity costs.

Ensuring you have enough natural light and even making use of the windows for natural airflow are two simple ways you can cut on energy usage.

It is also no secret that more efficient electronics are also better for the environment and for your next energy bill, as they use less power, while also potentially being more efficient in terms of how they work.

Choose the right partners

Choosing the best business partners is also crucial, especially when it comes to the supply chain.

Sourcing your products or materials from environmentally-friendly supplier can have great benefits for the environment and for your business' reputation, as well, despite being a bit more expensive.

But it pays off, according to Ryan Lynch, practice director of sustainability for the British Standards Institution.

Also, try to use environmentally-friendly choices when it comes to packaging, such as recycled paper and cardboard and definitely stay away, as much as possible, from plastic and Styrofoam.

Sure, there are companies that might have found a way for us to recycle any plastic material, but this is a solution to a problem that would better not exist in the first place.

Also, when it comes to designing your own products, think about their end of life. Despite again, increasing the cost, try to engineer them in a way that they can be used for another purpose once they reached their original operational lifespan or make them as recyclable as possible.

Work with the locals

When I say this, I mean both the administration of a city and the local population.

The administration can provide ways to become even more eco-friendly, either through training and ideas or infrastructure dedicated to becoming more sustainable, as well as grants for green businesses.

When it comes to the locals, they are going to be among your top customers, so make sure your business is as appealing as possible to them and market the fact that you care about the environment, both locally and on a large scale, as well.

Going back to the original sentence about customer choices nowadays, there are definitely going to be quite a number of people that are going to be willing to pay for that extra premium in order to support a nature-oriented small business.