It is no secret that the environment and the world are changing. We all must do our part to ensure that climate change doesn’t hurt the planet beyond repair, and to do that we all must make some kind of changes for the future of the planet. As a business owner, you can take certain measures within your company to ensure that you are doing right by the planet, and these changes are quite simple and cost effective. Here are some ways you can make your business more sustainable to help the environment.
Recycle
First and foremost, recycle. Offices and businesses produce a lot of paper. All of that paper can be recycled easily by putting recycling bins throughout your office space. If you give your team the tools to recycle, they will use them. You can also go the extra mile and shred the paper before recycling it, or use the shredded paper as packing material if you ship products.
The same can be done for plastic and cardboard by having the proper receptacles on site and in break rooms or areas where people eat. The more you recycle the less garbage you will create making it less likely that harmful materials will wind up in oceans or clean drinking water.
Perform an Environmental Audit
If you are going to take going green seriously, the first thing to do is take stock of your current environmental practices. Are you recycling properly? Are you recycling everything you can? Are you leaving behind a carbon footprint? Take the time to walk around the space or the warehouse and see what you are doing that could be harming the planet.
When you do this, make a list and with a quick internet search, you are most likely going to find that there are several alternatives out there that are easily accessed and ready to use. A lot of sites have detailed lists as to what you can do and why what you are currently doing is harmful. A few quick adjustments could make all the difference.
Go Digital
Why use paper when you don’t have to? Even though you can recycle paper, save the trees. The less paper, the less trees that get cut down. But in other ways, paper is flimsy, easily lost, and easily damaged. Making all of your information digital keeps it safe and keeps it organized and easy to find. You can scan your document with an Epson wireless document scanner to save the paper.
If you don’t know how to do it yourself, you can easily hire a digital information organization company to set up and create repositories where you can store all your client information, personal information, and employee information. No longer will you have to search through filing cabinets and boxes for paper information, it will all be accessed through your computer and it will be helping the planet.
Use Recycled Materials
If you do need to use paper for marketing materials, use recycled materials like recycled flyers, business cards, information cards, or invitations. It is true that when you are conducting business it is a nice personal touch to send something through the mail. If this is a practice that you are engaging in, just make sure you are using things that have been repurposed. For shipping purposes, consider using eco-friendly custom poly mailers, which are lightweight and minimize the environmental impact compared to traditional packaging materials.
Using repurposed materials means that garbage was not created to make your materials, and it also means that the materials used had several lives before they are not useful anymore, and they can also be recycled again. Reusing materials like paper and plastic allows them to be turned into other items like bicycles and shoes.
Use Refurbished Products
When you are looking for new electronics or equipment for your office, buy refurbished items. Old computers can work just like new with updated parts, and printers, scanners, and copiers can also work just as good as new but cost half the price. You will get the same technology while saving your company money.
Many people turn their noses down on refurbished, but that means those electronics have another shot at life, and they are not sitting in a dumpster somewhere leaking poisonous materials into the Earth. You will be doing your part to keep the planet green and you will also be doing a financial favor to your business account. Everyone wins.
Start a Green Team
If you ask around, I am sure people within your team have a passion for helping the planet. If that is the case for you, start a green team where these team members can keep an eye on the company’s environmental practices. The team can set up guidelines for the company that will give everyone a detailed plan to follow when it comes to green business practices.
The team can set up a recycling schedule and place the bins out, they can shred paper and reuse it or recycle it, they can make sure broken down cardboard boxes are reused or recycled properly, and the team can manage information in a green manner and conduct periodic environment audits to keep everything up to code.
Use Green Cleaning Supplies
You need to keep the office clean. That is a necessity. Germs need to be killed and people need to be kept safe. In order to keep everything green, you can buy and use cleaning products that are safe for the environment. These products can be found in just about any supermarket or store where you buy your products.
These green products are made without harmful chemicals that can get into the air or damage surfaces causing you to have to replace them. They are made of organic materials that don’t create pollution when produced and the containers and bottles they come in are 100% recyclable and can be reused or repurposed for future use.
Institute Commuter Benefits
One of the best ways to keep carbon emissions low in your area is to give your team commuter benefits as an incentive to take mass transit to work instead of their cars. Cars can cause a lot of pollution and cause a lot of traffic that is damaging to the air we breathe. A lot of mass transit runs on clean energy and produces a little if no pollution at all.
Commuting by mass transit saves people hundreds of dollars a year on gas, tolls, and vehicle maintenance. If you are able to offer benefits where your employees get a discount on mass transit fares or if you are able to cover their commuting costs 100%, the team will be able to avoid the stress of driving and commuting, and they will be doing their part to save the planet.
Conclusion
It is easier than you think to do your part to make the planet a greener and safer place for yourself, your family, and your future generations. As you can see, making adjustments to the way you conduct business in the spirit of helping the planet is easier than you think. A lot of business owners probably think that major overhauls need to be accomplished within the space to keep energy consumption low and keep people in the practice of being green. But as you can see, it is not that difficult.
Putting in a bit of an effort here and there is all you have to do and you can have the comfortable feeling of knowing that you are not only lucrative as a business and successful as a business owner, but you also care about others and the world in which we live, and that is a beautiful balance.
