There are some basic ideas that should be considered when thinking of starting up your own green business. Some i understood before starting mine and some i did not. Hopefully i will come back to this over the months (and years) and add to it as i gain experience in this field.

1- Greener than green. There are no shortcuts when it comes to this. When you have large multinational companies trying to squeeze the market then you cannot be seen to be in any way anything other than as green as a Martian lying in a flowerless meadow in early spring before the grass gets a bit scorched.

This means from top down you have to look at every faculty of the business and ensure that it is as green as you can make it. It is your USP. It cannot be debatable. But there are easier ways than you think about doing this.

2- The green community is a very powerful one these days. Possibly the most powerful politically bipartisan group here in the UK and in many other countries around the world, and it is growing. Let's face it, it has to.

This means that if you have their ear and trust it is a very valuable thing. But this can be lost very easily. The green community ironically are very tech savvy and quick to recommend or otherwise businesses that they have encountered. They can be a great marketing tool as long as you stay true to point 1.

3- Understand from the outset what the goals for your business are. If you are knitting a few jumpers a month from locally sourced organic wool and want to make a bit of extra cash from your hobbie then that is great.

If, however, you want to make a decent living out of your business then you have treat it like a normal one. This means long long hours and every free moment you have is spent doing or thinking about the business for the first few months at least. It is even harder than creating a normal one because you are constrained by the need to stay true to your green credentials and ethics, but this should also act as an energy booster to you.

4- A number of years ago when i was studying economics the lecturers told us about economic bubbles, it happened famously a couple of centuries or so ago with tulips in Holland and it happened more recently with internet stocks at the turn of the millennium. Basically, something got so popular that the price rose and then other people decided to rush into the market because the price was rising until everyone lost sight of the fundamentals of whether or not the business could actually make money. Then there was a crash when everyone realised they were standing on a house of cards.

I feel that the current recession has outed a lot of green companies. People have a lot less cash in their pockets and so are not willing to fork out the massive premiums for products and services that were green. It has made a lot of green companies leaner, more efficient, more business-like.

Don't just assume that people will purchase your product because it is environmentally friendly. To ensure that you will be a success in your field in your mind's eye take the eco element out of your business - could it still compete? Or are you relying solely on that to bring customers in? For me, part of my business model revolves around the advantage i have over other companies in my market because i do not have to pass an extra costl on to customers, this makes me price competitive.

5- Don't think that because you are a "nice" business that everyone will treat you nicely. My brother (who has his own successful business) said to me when i was beginning to set-up, "the only person you can rely upon is yourself". And i have learned to appreciate that.

It doesn't make you a bad person to expect something to be done when you were told it was going to be done if you are paying for the service. If someone has not done some work for you that they said they would then get on them until they do it.

Just because you are green friendly doesn't mean you can't demand high standards!