This post is dedicated to the environment - and Blog Action Day.

As real estate professionals, you're often in the public eye - meeting with clients, at open houses, recognized through your advertising or networking, etc.

These are great things for your business... so why not use this exposure to send an environmentally friendly message? I'm not suggesting you make a movie and go for a Nobel Peace Prize - you can be a bit more subtle and affect your own style of environmental awareness.

Here are some quick ideas that can benefit the environment while extending your brand...

1. Start an Office Recycling Program - if you haven't already, why not start now? A few blue or green bins, and a concious effort to recycle what you can is all that's needed to get going. It tells your clients that you care without actually saying anything.

2. Sponsor or Support a Beach / Park / Trail Clean Up - Imagine if you could leverage the people-power of all your co-workers, clients and friends to clean up something? It would probably get clean... Get some garbage bags, organize a carpool and attack a litter problem in your neighbourhood. Then reconvene for a BBQ in your office parking lot to celebrate your efforts. A difference has been made, and you're now associated with a great event.

3. Reduce Your Paper Output - The internet has made digital marketing a reality and necessity, but are any of us using less paper? The paperless society will only come when we actually run out of paper, so cutting back is good thing - environmentally and economically. How can you reduce? Easy. Make the decision to use less paper, and then do it. Replace it with more cost-effective digital marketing.

4. Join a Worthy Organization - Big, overwhelming problems won't get solved with one big solution. The environment, like health care, human rights, poverty... these will only get better with many small solutions, with many people working togther, working on many fronts. So join the fight in your community, and work on a small picture that improves the bigger picture.

5. Promote a Worthy Organization - After you've joined a worthy organization (see #4), start promoting that organization. It's win-win. As an agent, you've got marketing and advertising forums and platforms that most people don't have. You've got web sites and print ads, TV commercials and blogs - you've got an audience. Use it!