Eco-friendly and green living has become all the rage lately, and for good reason. We only have one planet, and we need to look after it if our grandchildren and other generations are going to enjoy the same privileged lives we do today.
It doesn’t matter if you own a web design agency or a small beauty salon – we all have a responsibility to make our offices as environmentally friendly as possible. Luckily, there are numerous ways to do this, and I’ve outlined a few of my favourites below.
Create Monthly Challenges
If your office is a friendly, laid back place, you could consider creating fun monthly challenges to encourage eco-friendly practices. There are a few different ways to approach this, but the general idea is to make things fun so that your employees actually want to do their best.
One example that I particularly like is seeing who can produce the least waste over the course of a week or a month. Give every employee their own waste bin, and encourage them to recycle wherever possible. If you want, you could reward the winner with some sort of novelty price, such as being “king of the office” for a day.
Use Indoor Plants
The environment within the office is often stuffy and the air tends to be pretty stale, especially if you don’t have decent ventilation. Luckily, this is pretty easily solved by buying a few indoor plants, which will act as natural air filters, removing impurities and keeping your office fresh.
On top of this, they will brighten the place up, and you may even find that your employees become more productive and happier than they used to be. And, you won’t have to use the aircon as much because it simply won’t be necessary to circulate the air as often.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
I’m sure you’ve heard of the “three Rs” before, but did you know that they can be effectively implemented in the office to ensure your environmental footprint is as low as feasibly possible?
Reduce – It’s important to always start with reducing the amount of waste you generate. There are a few different ways to do this. For example, if your business relies heavily on printed paperwork, consider taking things online.
Reuse – The second R, reuse, is especially easy in an office setting. Let’s take disposable ballpoint pens as an example. Many businesses go through thousands of these a year. If you replace them with high-quality refillable pens – perhaps provide one for each employee and put their names on them – you will dramatically reduce your waste generation. And, you will likely save money as well!
Recycle – In many cases, it’s simply impossible to completely eliminate waste generation in the office. However, you will find that nearly everything can be recycled if you try hard enough.
Final Word
A lot of people don’t realise just how easy it is to transform their office space and make it more eco-friendly. The three ideas I’ve outlined above will help you get started, but remember that it’s by no means an exhaustive list.