- Go paperless.
Gone are the days are when posting letters was the primary source of communication in the business world.
In today’s fast paced environment, where time is everything, going paperless is not only good for the environment, but also practical and potentially more efficient for your cooperate world.
Keeping paper copies of letters, minutes and other communications is not only expensive as it consumes a fair amount of paper and ink for printing, it also takes up a lot of valuable real estate space in the office and storage areas.
These rooms and locations could be utilised in a more team friendly manner, by having a more engaging and open spaced lunch room, to bigger working environments to assist in promoting better mental health for your employees.
An electronic manner of communication is also vital to ensure accurate record keeping.
Gathering previous correspondence physically can be time consuming and some items may be missed which could be of vital importance.
Electronic copies can be accessed immediately and depending on what system you use; all relevant data should be linked and easy to download and use as required.
- Promote in-house recycling.
If you place recycling bins in communal areas, such as break rooms and waiting areas near elevators, some people may still place their refuse in the nearest bin and not use the recycling bins.
Others will ensure their recycling consumables go in the correct bin.
If you elect to have this collected, it may cost you some money.
Another idea is to reach out to local community groups who may collect recyclable containers and take them to the refuse centre as part of their fund-raising activity.
With this idea in mind, you may decide to focus on one charity or community group every month or a few a year.
Projects such as this not only help reduce waste in waste management facilities, but you also assist the local community, which will give you a good standing and excellent public relations.
The best advertising is free!
- Provide filtered water.
If you walk around your business, especially office spaces, everyone is likely to either be consuming a beverage or have a beverage container on their desk or within their reach.
Plastic bottles, cans and other materials take many years to break down.
Getting a filtered water system in, is not only good for Mother Earth, but a great investment for your workers by providing them with a healthy alternative of hydration, other than soft drinks and caffeine. (don’t take away their coffee though, lol).
- Participate in E waste.
E waste recycling Australia companies can help you with reducing your waste in landfill of larger items such as computers and printers.
A simple and painless service, where they collect your out of date, broken or otherwise incompatible electronic items and remove them for you.
Their aim is to harvest and recycle as much as they can.
What can’t be used here in Australia, is shipped overseas where other countries may be able to gain benefit from your discarded e-waste.
The best thing about this service is that it is that most E-waste collection services don’t charge you a fee, provided you have a suitable amount of goods to collect of course.
- Invest in LED light bulbs.
Whilst the initial outlay of LED light bulbs might be more expensive than the standard incandescent bulbs, they are typically more energy efficient and better for our planet.
They don’t require a lot of power to operate, and are thought to be up to 95% more productive than regular bulbs.
They last longer too as they have no parts that are likely to break down or burn out.
Because you’re actually saving power, as well as the environment, your electricity bills may be lower too.
- Consider solar panels.
Speaking of ways to save power (and money), consider solar panels for your business.
They’ve been a popular choice for home owners for some time, and now businesses are also investing in these sun power energy savers too.
Solar panels are installed facing north in Australia, so they can collect more of the sun’s rays.
When the sun’s rays hit the solar panels, the energy from the sun is collected and stored in the PV cells in each panel.
This energy then makes an electrical charge which moves due to an internal field in these cells and makes electricity.
This means you’re using stored power from the panels, rather than taping into the power grid.
- Try and reduce travel time where you can.
Covid may have assisted in teaching us how many of our personnel can work from home and how much of our business meetings can be conducted via video conferencing.
Traveling to various locations for meetings can be time consuming and quite problematic in some situations if a larger number of people are required.
Extra traffic in the road not only adds to your company’s carbon imprint, but also takes up parking spaces and valuable time.
It can be difficult to negotiate a time and length of meeting that is suitable for everyone.
Rather than having everyone travel to one location, it might be a more feasible option to have attendees stay in their current location and have a few key essential shareholders attend the meeting via video conferencing.
A key draw card in any position is the ability to work from home if the role enables it, even if it’s for part of the week.
This will assist not only on reducing environmental impact with the use of vehicles, bit also factors such as use of power for office lights and computers.
Having flexible working arrangements in places, such as various starting and finishing times, as well as working from home options can be helpful across the board.
It again reduces congestion on the roads.
It can also help your employees with their mental health with malleable working arrangements to assist with the needs of their personal and family lives.