How to Ensure that your Business is Doing its Best to Be Green

Life in the modern age is impossible without the use of modern technology. Try as you might to unplug, your success in 2016 depends entirely on the technology around you. As with many things in life it’s not what you use, rather how you use it, that matters most.

There are many ways you can ensure that your business is doing its best to ensure that your business is doing its best to go green. These thing don’t just impact your carbon footprint, but they have a significant, direct impact on your bottom line too. If you’re ready to make 2016 greener than ever at your business, here are the top 5 ways you can ensure that your business is doing everything it can.

Turn it off if you’re not using it

One thing that almost business is guilty of is wasting energy. Leaving PCs on overnight, leaving monitors on when you’ve gone to lunch, and forgetting to turn the printer off at the end of the day all eats into your energy bill much quicker than you realise. Not only is leaving your office equipment running overnight a complete and utter waste of energy, it’s a waste of money. Want to keep the bills to a minimum? Turn it off if you’re not using it. You could also look into energy efficient peripherals and a great place to find them is here.

Put your foot down on your window/radiator policy

Another thing which is incredibly easy to do which will keep your bills down and the environment happy is examining your window radiator policy. In the middle of winter it can be a little cold outside, and people want to run the radiators – that’s understandable. However, if one person gets too hot and wants to crack the window, you’re not solving anything – you’re effectively throwing money out of the window. Tell your staff to compromise turn the radiator down and put a jumper on.

Switch to LED lighting

Traditional incandescent lighting is hideously inefficient. LED lighting has come a long way over the years, and the latest LED lighting is far more efficient than you might realise. By switching to LED lighting you can drop your energy usage by up to 90 per cent when it comes to your lighting, dropping your lighting bill by around 40 per cent along the way. While many people will jump on this just for the monetary savings (the bulbs pay for themselves within 6 months and the rest just helps the company coffers), the environmental savings are not to be sniffed at, with LED lighting producing significantly less CO2 than their incandescent friends.

Recycle, recycle, recycle

The environmental benefits of recycling are obvious. However, the financial benefits of doing so are often overlooked, leading to many businesses simply refusing to recycle anything. Simply put, recycling saves money. Why? Because products made from recycled materials are cheaper than products made from raw materials. If you want to buy cheaper office furniture, cheaper paper and cheaper stationary, recycle your waste materials so that your supplies can be made cheaper. What does around, comes around, as they say!

Reconsider your stance on working from home

Some professions will always require a physical presence – it’s hard to work as a bartender from home. On the other hand, given that we live in the age of information technology there is very little reason that many of us can’t work from home. IT specialises, web marketers and people in online sales could all feasibly work from home without causing any real disruption to the business. If you’re worried about how it will impact your employee’s ability to work as a team, why not offer all of your employees the option to work from home every Wednesday? Your employees will see it as a perk to working for you and you cut your heating, lighting and electricity bills by a fifth. On top of this, you reduce the business’ carbon footprint by cutting the carbon emissions of the weekly commute into the office by a fifth. If your business can feasibly manage like this, you’ve found a situation where everyone wins.