Being eco-friendly is now more important than ever, especially as we reach a crisis point with global warming. However, not every business knows how to make the most impactful changes, and it can sometimes be daunting even trying to figure out where to begin.
If you’ve decided that now is the right time to promote sustainability and eco-friendliness in your workplace, you’ll achieve great success by taking some of the following actions.
Downsize Your Office
The digital age has been transformational for the average business, with plenty of surprising benefits, like increased productivity and connectivity. However, it has also meant that many companies no longer need large offices to care for their customers. Instead, most employees can work remotely from the comfort of their own homes.
If you type “serviced offices near me” into a search engine, you might be surprised at just how many opportunities present themselves for you to downsize and limit your environmental impact. With fewer employees working on-site, you’ll require fewer resources and limit unnecessary travel. Over time, this adds up to major benefits for the environment and for your bottom line.
Use Eco-Friendly Packaging
If you’re a product-based business selling goods to customers, you’re in a position to make a significant impact with this one simple change. While many companies still package their goods in plastic because it’s easy and cost-effective, it’s worth exploring eco-friendly alternatives.
Materials like seaweed, mycelium, wood pulp, and cornstarch are all suitable alternatives to plastic that break down and deliver much-needed nutrients back into the soil.
The planet benefits, and so does your business image. Studies have shown that customers now prefer sustainable products and packaging throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Suggest Transport Alternatives
We use billions of gallons of fuel, a finite resource, each year. While it’s often crucial for employees to travel by car to get to your place of business, many different transport options are less harmful to the planet.
You might encourage the use of bicycles by offering monetary incentives and securing bike parking. If you have fuel-burning fleet vehicles, it may be time to upgrade to electric or hybrid models. You might even see the value in encouraging remote work or positioning your office near convenient public transport.
Go Paperless
The average person uses almost 700 pounds of paper each year. To put our use into perspective, we have to cut down half a million trees just to produce the Sunday newspaper.
Given our propensity for technology, it makes sense to go one step further by encouraging a wholly paperless workplace. Encourage employees to share documents in the cloud or via email rather than printing them out. Your team could also switch to using digital diaries rather than paper ones.
Phase Out Single-Use Cups
It’s not uncommon to see single-use water bottles and coffee cups in office environments, especially since you can avoid washing them. However, knowing that almost 300 billion disposable cups end up in landfills annually, you might consider encouraging employees to bring their own cups to the office or providing reusable ones.
Making this switch is more beneficial than you might think. Not only do you prevent dozens of single-use cups from entering landfills daily, but you can also have reusable cups printed with your business logos, leading to all-important brand recognition that can lift your image.
Being more eco-friendly doesn’t have to be a massive undertaking that causes a great deal of stress. Do your research, make one change at a time, and before you know it, you’ll be making a significant difference to the Earth – with minimal effort required.