How can your business be more environmentally friendly?

39% of businesses have not yet implemented a paper-less policy to try and reduce paper usage.^[1]

With so much pressure being put on individuals and businesses to become greener and eco-friendlier, we thought we’d pull together a few different ideas on how people in your office could club together and help the environment.

The Green team

A great first step in the right direction is to create an office ‘green team’. A group of people who will take charge of implementing all the new changes to make your office the eco-friendliest it can be.  Another option is to just have one person as your office ‘eco-champion’.

Go paperless

This may seem unrealistic to some offices, but even cutting down on the use of paper can make a massive difference. The increasing popularity of cloud storage presents a chance to store more documents electronically and less on the end of your desk. Another tip that can help reduce the amount of paper used in an office is setting all the printers’ default settings to print on both sides of the paper.

Desk plants

As well as looking pretty, office plants can reduce your carbon emissions. Devil’s Ivy, Peace lilies or Snake plants are often regarded as the best plants for offsetting your footprint.

Telecommuting

Otherwise known as working from home. Avoiding adding to your carbon footprint by travelling, even for a day, can be a great help to the environment. Thanks to improvements in technology, it’s easy to join a conference call or video call. If you do have to make the commute to work, why not ditch the car or public transport and walk, run or cycle in?

Recycling bins

Something that every office should have. Clearly indicate on each bin what can and can’t be recycled. From plastic, to glass, food and even electronics – you might be surprised what can be recycled these days!

Community service

Why not sign up to a community service scheme in your local area that helps look after the environment, like cleaning a beach or helping out at a community garden. As well as the positive environmental impact, it’s great for bringing the office together and helps build cross-department relationships. 

Switch to LED

‘LED lights are up to 80% more efficient than traditional lighting such as fluorescent and incandescent lights’^[2]. Switching makes sense just for that stat alone, and if you’re still not convinced, by changing to LED bulbs you’ll be reducing the amount of times you have to change them, therefore lowering the cost of lighting. The LED bulbs themselves are recyclable as well.

Use your computers’ power management

Make sure that the power management options for your office computers are being utilised, to avoid them running and using energy all day. And at the end of the day, make sure the office lights and other items of electrical equipment are switched off.

Even if you take on just a few of these points initially, it’ll be a great first step in creating your very own ‘green’ office. At Cashplus Bank, we’re always looking to introduce new initiatives to make our office eco-friendly. We also recently announced that our new cards will be made of a degradable PVC material, so keep an eye out for them coming soon!

We’d love to hear about any changes you make around your office, so please drop us a Tweet @Cashplus and let us know how you’re getting on!

Sources

^[1] https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/uk-businesses-challenged-to-reduce-their-paper-usage-as-environmental-impact-reaches-all-time-high/46346/

^[2] https://www.sepco-solarlighting.com/blog/bid/145611/the-advantages-of-led-lights-for-the-environment

This content was created on 9th May 2019