If you’re environmentally conscious, you may be wondering how you can reduce your company’s carbon footprint. Don’t worry, EcoSource has you covered. Check out these 10 easy ways you can reduce your facility’s carbon footprint.
1. Take an alternate way to work/encourage carpooling and other ways to get to work
This is the first step which doesn’t take place inside of the facility of your company, but it’s a no-brainer. Any way that you can encourage carpooling, taking a bike to work, using public transportation, or anything else that may help reduce the overall amount of vehicles on the road can help cut down on carbon emissions.
2. Set up a recycling bin in your break room
Encourage recycling by setting up a recycling bin or recycling program in your office break room. Let employees know they can recycling their bottles and aluminum products in this area. Better yet, if you use a lot of alkaline batteries, you can set up a box for collection of these and proper disposal. Make sure you’re emptying these regularly and disposing of them properly.
3. Use less paper
It’s 2017. Investing in a scanner or paper port (or just photographing documents) to email or dropbox items rather than faxing items can be helpful to reduce needless paper waste – and your documents might even get there faster.
Enrolling your company into direct deposit options can be helpful to reduce check stub paper waste as well, and your employees will also be excited to get their paychecks sooner and instantly!
4. Reduce energy usage
This one’s simple – turn off lights when you’re not using them. Change CFL or fluorescent bulbs to LED alternatives. Change out dated CRT monitors and televisions to energy saving LCD or LED monitors. Not only will the planet thank you, but your wallet will, too!
5. Switch to thermal printing for receipts – or electronic signatures and receipts
If you have a retail store, you might be giving out lots of receipts daily. Switching to a thermal printer can help save you both cost on ink as well as plastic waste from discarded printer cartridges. If you can’t invest in a thermal printer (say your software won’t support it), you can alternatively participate in an ink recycling program such as offered by local business Cartridge World or even Staples.
You can also save receipts at all by going to electronic signatures and emailed receipts. Sometimes this means upgrading a POS system and investing in tablets or other e-devices. Check with your POS provider to see what options are available to you.
6. Control the temperature
Sometimes even a couple of degrees can make a difference. While you want both your employees and customers to be comfortable in your office or business, reducing your heating by just a couple of degrees or increasing the temperature of your AC in the summer can help reduce a carbon footprint greatly. We’ve seen lots of offices that go overboard with air conditioning during hot days. When employees are putting on sweatshirts in your office, it may be time to adjust your heating and cooling plan.
7. Turn off & unplug unneeded things
Any time you’re done for the day, make sure you’re turning off computers, televisions, and other energy sucking appliances. Anything that you can unplug, unplug it! Alternatively, you can put devices on a power strip and just flip a switch before you leave for the day. We would not suggest repeatedly unplugging computers or gaming consoles as sometimes they can get finicky, but go right ahead with other devices!
8. If possible, encourage working from home
With less people using energy or climate control systems in the office, have out of office days. This is especially helpful during inclement weather – work can still get done but without using heating, AC, or other energy used to keep the office up and running. Lots of office items can be done from home or via Skype or Hangouts. Give it a try!
9. Keep HVAC systems maintained
Motors are more likely to use more energy when they’re working extra hard and not maintained, so make sure you keep on top of changing out filters and yearly maintenance for HVAC systems.
10. Encourage employees to practice green habits
Last but not least, encouraging employees to participate in green habits such as recycling, limiting paper waste, and other activities can help spread green and carbon footprint consciousness. Let employees know about your success in going green. Show them that you are making monetary savings and energy savings as well. Make it a team effort and reward the team when you are making great progress!
