Assessing where your office could improve when it comes to doing better for our planet could, in turn, help you save money.
When focussing on your office workload or clients, it can be easy to forget about the little things around your actual workplace. Bad habits can be formed easily, and however, they can be broken with a few simple tips and changes to help reduce your environmental impact as a whole.
The following tips are designed to help you think about what your office is currently doing and could be doing instead.
Keeping your water usage in check
Utilizing a company such as Castle Water can help you keep on top of your office’s water through the likes of consolidating all your water usage bills from your water meters into one bill.
Through understanding your office water usage, you can easily spot anything unusual and take positive steps to reduce any wasteful water use.
By working directly with water efficiency experts businesses, you can be sure that your workplace is optimized to help you financially alongside saving the planet fully.
These experts will work directly with you, ensuring that processes are completed directly in your best interest.
Educating your staff on their water consumption is a great way to encourage employees to help reduce their water wastage. Your staff will be more aware of their actions that may be affecting your business.
You can also install water sensors on any taps, automatically stopping when not used, helping conserve water use. After all, plants produce oxygen that will help improve your indoor air quality too.
When appropriate, you can add in toilets with dual flush options that provide a reduced water flush volume that can make a difference. By educating your staff about these features, you can be sure that things are used appropriately in your workplace.
Avoiding Wastefulness
A great way to avoid wastefulness in the office is to go completely paperless. Making the digital switch from paper is easily done within this digital world and can save valuable time correcting any mistakes.
You can also encourage staff to take notes digitally instead of sticking notes. Another great replacement would be to provide staff with dry-erase whiteboards and markers that can be reused multiple times.
By providing staff with a coffee machine that relies on reusable filters and coffee beans instead of single-use plastic coffee pods, you can cut down on the amount of landfill clogging rubbish. Many people agree that grinding fresh coffee tastes better than pre-made coffee machine pods.
The left-over coffee grounds can also be used as fertilizer for any office plants you may have.
You can also provide staff with ceramic coffee mugs and glassware instead of single-use plastic options. Soon everyone will have their favorite mug or cup to enjoy that better-tasting coffee with.
If you want to change any large items in your office, such as desks or chairs, choose to donate or resell them instead. This will help reduce the waste stream, stopping the items from clogging landfills.
Recycling furniture is also a great eco-friendly option. Consider buying used items as many items may come in great condition at a much-reduced price.
This will prove to be a cost-effective decision for your business.
Allow staff to work virtually by working from home
Due to the global pandemic, workplaces have evolved to allow for the shift into the virtual world, with virtually meeting and communication.
This may have seemed difficult to execute until we were globally forced into doing so. However, many workers prefer to work virtually over returning to the in-person workplace.
By taking away an unnecessary commute, you can take great steps towards being more environmentally friendly due to the cut down of carbon-producing transportation such as cars, buses, and trains. This helps reduce your own carbon footprint.
By minimizing travel for employees, you may also save them money due to the cut down on transportation costs.
With this new work flexibility and increase in personal money, you will also help create happier morale for staff, ultimately creating better mental health and productivity.
Allowing staff to work remotely from home can allow for more work-life balance as some staff members may have the time to tackle neglected household chores during breaks, meaning more personal downtime after work hours.
Therefore, a work from home initiative provides a greener option for the planet and a happier team of employees.
Through minimizing the amount of time spent in the office space, this, in turn, will also reduce your bills due to a reduction in usage bills such as electricity and water bills. Furthermore, this option helps the planet through less need for those resources.
You may also choose to downsize the office space as a whole, reducing running costs further due to shifting into a virtual workspace.
