Could Being More Eco-Conscious Save Your Business Money?
Saving money and cutting back on running costs is a priority for all businesses. You can save your company money and be more eco-conscious at the same time. With a few basic changes to your operations, you can make your business much greener and save yourself quite a bit of money.
Use Green Cleaning Products
Your housekeeping team ought to be provided with greener cleaning products. A lot of cleaning products use a lot of harsh, dangerous chemicals. If these chemicals are breathed in, they are not only dangerous to the staff that has to use them, but they also have a negative impact on the environment. Choose greener products that are non-toxic. These are safer for the people using them, and better for the planet too. Other maintenance should be green too. Look for commercial building repair contractors with green practices.
Find More Eco-Friendly Promotional Materials
Many companies use promotional items like tote bags and notebooks to advertise their business, but these can generate a lot of waste. Whether you keep a pile of promotional notepads and a pot of pens in all your meeting rooms or give out water bottles and keyrings at trade shows, you could be doing more harm to the planet than you realize. Instead, look at promotional items made from recycled materials, and that can be recycled again instead of contributing to landfills. Give away things that are useful, so they actually get used instead of thrown away. A free pen is often useful, as are items like notepads and post-it notes. These are more likely to be kept and used than things like tote bags with your logo which just get thrown out.
Discourage The Commute
Cars are one of the worst offenders for causing damage to the environment. If your staff usually drive to work, think about you can make it easier for them to make a greener commute or not commute at all.
An ideal company location is within walking distance of a train station. Offer to buy yearly travel passes for your staff to use the bus or train to travel to work, and take back payments from their wages every month.
Fit secure bike racks and provide showers for those who cycle to work, and consider joining a salary exchange scheme where you buy bikes for staff, who would then pay you back in the form of salary deductions.
Offer more options for remote working too.
Reduce Plastic Waste
Most offices use a lot of single-use plastic, such as disposable cups in the water machine and plastic trays of sandwiches ordered in for meetings. Do what you can to reduce the amount of plastic that your office uses. Don’t refill the sleeves of plastic cups in the water machine next time it’s empty and instead stock the kitchen with mugs, glasses, or water bottles that can be washed and used again.
For meetings, order food from companies that use recycled or biodegradable packaging instead of plastic. Instead of bottled water, fill a jug with water, ice and fruit. It looks nicer on the meeting room table and doesn’t use plastic.
