Making your business greener

The majority of businesses are making the conscious effort to go green as the new agenda continues to overflow with stories about carbon emissions and global warming. It is more than just saving the environment that is on the mind of a business though. Firstly, going greener normally means streamlining your organisational methods, which not only boosts the environment and productivity, but will more than likely save money over the longer period. Better still, consumers and other businesses are more likely to want to align with an organisation that has greener credentials and has taken steps to minimise their environmental impact. Here are some of things a business can do to improve its eco-friendliness:

Educate and involve staff

A business is nothing without its employees, so it is important to adjust their potentially wasteful behaviour. The main one being that many employees will drive separate cars to work even though they are coming from the same direction as many other colleagues. Instead of bringing their own vehicles you can encourage them to car share on the way to and from work to cut down on their carbon emissions and fuel consumption. By involving staff in being greener you can make them feel like a bigger part of the business and more motivated.

Appliances and energy consumption

The amount of energy that appliances and machinery use up on a daily basis is astonishing. It is important to understand your appliances and see how they perform to make sure you don’t have it on a setting that uses more power than necessary for the jobs you are doing on it. Keeping them maintained and efficient is another way to make a subtle difference to your levels of energy consumption. Also, always make sure that appliances, machinery and lights are all turned off when the factory or office is closed as otherwise you are throwing money and your green ambitions out of the window.

Paper usage and recycling

Paper usage is a big issue when it comes to life in the standard office. Unnecessary printing of emails, reports and letters is causing mass deforestation and causing environmental issues. One good way to save wasting paper is to try and do many more things electronically, like invoicing and paying bills. Christmas holiday eCards are a great way to stop the excessive mail out of festive greetings that squanders countless amounts of paper, which increases the deforestation issues. Reusing paper is also a simple way that can cut your paper wastage quickly as can ensuring that your staff recycle everything possible to boost your eco-friendly nature.