6 Tips For More Sustainable Office Changes

Julie Starr • September 12, 2021



Many people are familiar with the term “green office,” but not everyone knows what it means. Green offices are becoming more popular, as many companies take steps to be environmentally conscious and reduce their carbon footprint. There are plenty of changes that can be made in an office environment to make it more sustainable.

Do You Really Need It Printed?
Don’t print paper when you don’t have to. Don’t actually need something printed? Ask yourself if it’s even necessary at all. You can save a lot of paper and money by using electronic documents and digital files instead of printing everything out. If you must print, make sure that your printer is set for double-sided prints whenever possible. This will cut down on the amount of ink or toner needed, saving both time and resources in office supplies too.

Declutter 

Get rid of old stuff that isn’t being used anymore before moving into a new office space. A simple way to reduce waste in the office is by getting rid of anything not currently being used within the company. Whether it means outdated equipment or unused furniture, it’s vital to get rid of all the clutter before you move into a new, smaller office space. This will reduce your overall waste output and make sure that everything is in good working condition for when you actually need it. Any old equipment or furniture, sell it and put the money back into your business.

Carpooling 

Encourage employees to carpool or use public transportation whenever possible. Suppose every employee took part in carpools and used public transit instead of driving by themselves. In that case, they could cut down on carbon emissions from their own personal vehicles and decrease traffic congestion around the area. It’ll be a win-win situation.

Eco-friendly Cleaning Supplies

Use eco-friendly cleaning supplies throughout your whole business, including housekeeping services. You should have green products readily available in work areas and supply them with enough materials so that office cleaning services can use them as well. This will help ensure that you’re not generating any toxic fumes and chemicals throughout the office space. 

Recycle Bins

Make recycling bins easily accessible and encourage employees to recycle items like paper, plastic bags, old clothing, or food scraps. You might think your company is small enough where it won’t produce much waste. However, chances are that a lot of recyclable materials are still going into landfills instead of being recycled properly. It doesn’t take long before even a small amount turns into tons of garbage that need to be stored somewhere for years on end if necessary. The best thing about recycling in an eco-friendly workplace is how easy it is to accomplish. Just place some clearly marked containers near the area where people tend to congregate, and you’re all set.

Paper Towels 

Encourage employees to use fewer paper towels in the restroom. It seems like a good idea at first glance. Why not just provide people with more paper towels? However, this actually doesn’t do much for the environment because it means that they’ll be using up more of them instead of reusing one towel over and over again. This is definitely something where small changes can make a big difference.

Every office should implement some changes that make it a little greener each day. Even if it’s as small as replacing your regular air filters with air filter media material . This will help the environment and your bottom line because sustainable companies tend to perform better financially than those who don’t focus on environmental issues. Implementing these green practices can also improve morale among employees, which makes everyone happier about going to work each day.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.