When it comes to being environmentally friendly, most of us merely implement changes in our personal and home lives. This is invaluable, as it makes a huge difference when it comes to human impact on the Earth. However, why stop there? If you are a small business owner, you can also take steps to help your office, commercial property or another place of work as sustainable and green as possible.
With the new year fast approaching, there’s never been a better time to start making resolutions and sticking to them. So, prepare yourself to implement some of the following changes to the way your company functions! It could, quite literally, help to save the planet.
Use Sustainable Energy in the Workplace for Growing an Eco-Friendly Company
Let’s start with your energy consumption. Businesses contribute a whole lot of pollution to the planet’s atmosphere.
Think about it. Not only does your company use a whole lot of energy when it comes to heating and cooling workspaces and retail spaces, but you also use a lot of electricity within these spaces. If you are in the hospitality sector, chances are that you’ll use a lot of gas for cooking too! You use water for cleaning, operating toilets, and having washing facilities in-house.
Then you have the fuel consumption involved in transporting stock to and from your commercial property and to and from customers or clients.
Now, you may not have considered your business’ energy consumption before besides the general financial cost that affects you personally. But it’s time to start thinking about how this energy consumption itself impacts the world around us and all of its inhabitants.
Fortunately, the government has imposed certain restrictions on business energy consumption to protect the planet to a certain extent, but that’s not to say that you should stop your efforts at the bare minimum requirements. Instead, find out more about business energy management systems (or bems) and what they can do for your company individually.
They will help your business to evolve into an altogether more ecological unit.
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Opt for Sustainable Stationary in Order Growing an Eco-Friendly Company
The average office makes its way through so much more stationary than is generally necessary. Now, think of how many paper products alone your office uses, how much every office in the world must use and then consider how many rainforests must be destroyed to supply all of these with virgin paper. Instead, let’s reuse what we’ve already got at hand!
Opt for recycled paper goods, including notepads, printer paper, post its, letter paper, and envelopes. The same goes for files.
Post-consumer waste products are the best option out there. Now consider all of the disposable pens that you use too.
The plastic containers get tossed in the bin once they’ve run out of ink. But have you ever considered where this goes? Well, landfill. What’s more? It’s not biodegradable. So why not invest in more eco-friendly options such as wooden pencils and bamboo pens.
Alternatively, try out refill pens or pens with replaceable ink cartridges. These small changes will make a profound difference to the volume of the landfill on the planet.
Try Out Biodegradable Cleaners for Growing an Eco-Friendly Company
Every business has a fair amount of cleaning that has to be done in order to keep things up, running and in ship shape. Whether that means running a duster over desktops, pushing the hoover around, or giving the toilets a thorough scrub.
Cleaning isn’t the most glamorous job, but it’s essential to maintain a healthy and happy company.
You may think that all cleaning products need to contain all sorts of chemicals to get the job done. But you’d be mistaken!
Not only is it more green to use natural, biodegradable cleaning products, but you’ll expose yourself and your employees to fewer potentially toxic or harmful chemicals throughout the process.
Many options can be composed yourself, using common household ingredients such as baking soda, lemon juice, and vinegar. Alternatively, if you have less time on your hands, you can try out eco-friendly brands.
Always inquire as to whether you get a discount for bulk buys too. This could save you a little extra cash in the process!
Once you’ve used up your current supplies, it may well be time to consider the change.
It turns out that making your company more environmentally friendly could be a whole lot easier than you think.
Though you may have to do a little research in order to make informed decisions when it comes to implementing the changes you have in mind, operating in a more eco-friendly manner will soon become second nature to you.
