With a societal shift to be more environmentally conscious, it’s imperative for businesses to create sustainable initiatives to be kinder to the planet. Everybody needs to do their part to tackle huge environmental issues like climate change, deforestation, and pollution at home, work, and daily life. With this in mind, businesses need to encourage staff to get on board and help protect the planet to create a greener future.
If you are struggling to reduce your negative impact on the environment for your business, then use this guide on how to be environmentally friendly in your business to help change the circumstances that are negatively impacting our planet and do your part for the environment.
Save energy
Energy use for businesses varies depending on the size and type of your business. On average, businesses can use between 15000 and 25000 kWh of energy a year! To avoid wasting power in your workplace, you can reduce the reliance on lighting by maximizing natural light in the space. Allow sunlight to flood the space through windows and doors and use a neutral or bright color scheme to bounce the light across the room. As well as this, you can stop using AC or heating systems as much if you use nature to cool your business or let out old air. Open windows and the door for a little while on cold days to let the old air out and fresh air in, allowing a heating system to quickly heat the space without needing to be on for long. On hot days have them open for longer or the whole day.
Go paperless
Many businesses rely on using paper for filing systems, bills, important information, and work tasks. If this sounds like your business or you use paper for things that can be swapped for digital solutions, then try to go paperless to strive for less waste and harm to the environment. You can use E-bills, app notifications, and internet banking for bills, wages, and finances to ensure that printing and paper use isn’t needed. You can also use virtual systems to assign tasks to employees, have virtual signoffs, use communication tools like Microsoft Teams for communication, and order via online platforms for tools and resources for your business.
Reduce your digital impact
With a focus on going digital to avoid paper waste and negative environmental impacts, you can actually negatively affect the planet if you aren’t smart with how you use digital and devices. Your business website is hosted on a server which uses a lot of energy to run. If your site has a lot of files and data, it will use even more energy to load these every time someone navigates your site. Try to change this by using servers that are powered by green energy to reduce your website’s impact on climate change.
The digital devices your business uses can also have a significant impact on energy use. Review the devices you use in your workplace, from laptops to monitors, TV screens, and mobiles, and think if you can replace these with eco-friendly options. This can be to upgrade them for efficiency and to prevent waste or choosing second-hand equipment to reduce the negative impacts on the environment. You should also shut down every appliance at the end of the day to stop power from being used when everyone’s gone home.
Utilize sustainable materials
As a business, you will find that you use an excessive number of materials that can all contribute to bad environmental impacts. Look at what your business uses and orders in and see if you could make any changes. For example, a construction company that needs metal may want to swap to a steel box section instead as this material is easy to recycle and even repurpose for many industries.
You could also look into reducing your single-use plastic consumption such as water bottles that are thrown after use or pens. Instead, try to encourage staff to use refillable water bottles by offering a water fountain or cold water tap and have refillable pens available to use.
Recycle as much as you can
Whatever you use in your business, look to see if it can be recycled at the end of its life when used to reduce your negative environmental impact. Implement product and disposable initiatives that help to reduce the need to recycle as well, so you’re not filling recycling waste up to the brim.
Save water
A lot of water can be used at any business in the toilets and kitchen which adds to your water wastage. Saving water is a massive step toward being a more environmentally friendly business. Instead of relying on a sink to wash dishes where water is constantly running at different points of the day in the kitchen, you can use a dishwasher where you can wash the day’s dirty dishes all together. In your toilets, consider implementing dual flush toilets that use less water and have push taps to avoid running water or drips.
Consider reducing travel or sustainable alternatives
Consider carefully if you need everybody in the workplace all the time. This is especially important for offices as you bring a whole lot of people to one area which pollutes the earth for, sometimes, just having them sitting at the desk doing their work. This type of work can be done from home so see if you even need an office at all or if you can have a hybrid work environment for staff to come in at different times for meetings.
If your business needs people at the workplace every day, then find sustainable alternatives other than vehicles for transportation to the area. Encourage walking and cycling to work instead by implementing healthy schemes that have incentives or equipment to help them do this. You could use the Cycle to Work scheme which gives team discounts on bikes and equipment.
Make a green space
Create a healthier, more environmentally friendly workplace by making it a green space. Add house plants around the building to remove nasty chemicals that are found in indoor air. Plants absorb the carbon dioxide we breathe out and release fresh oxygen back into the environment which cleanses the air at the same time. This helps to have a cleaner and sustainable workplace.
Use this guide on how to be environmentally friendly in your business to help protect the planet and strive toward a greener future. Take action to reduce your emissions and negative impact on the environment and get everybody on board to do their part for your business.
