The average person today knows more and cares more about the environment than ever before. In these enlightened times, everyone understands the risk posed by climate change, and many of us are trying to do our bit to encourage a healthier planet and a more sustainable environment. While big businesses who have had time to establish themselves tend to be more set in their ways and less inclined to change their current practices, smaller, independent businesses tend to be more environmentally conscious.
Whether you are the business owner, or you are otherwise responsible for managing an office, there are a number of simple things that you can do to encourage a much greener and more sustainable working environment.
Reasons to Go Green
There are a number of reasons that going green makes sense for any office. There is the obvious PR boost that you will gain from being able to flaunt your environmental commitment but instituting greener policies will also help to save money and boost morale. The following are some simple yet highly effective things that you can do in order to encourage a greener working environment in your office.
Go Paperless
Most offices have by now made the transition to a largely or entirely paperless office. However, many of you may still have memories of a time when it was common practice to automatically print out any emails and other documents that a business received. There was perhaps an argument for doing this in the past, but these days cloud services mean that your data and documents are accessible wherever you are.
Reduce Waste
It is a good idea to carry out the occasional audit of your stationery and supplies. The amount of paper that you use, for example, can tell you a lot about the amount of printing and archiving of documents that is occurring. You should only be making and storing hard copies of the most vital documents, those that can’t be kept online in digital format.
Solve Your Own IT Issues
Should you run into any trouble with your office equipment, it is better to try and fix it yourself if you are able to. Many businesses give up on their computing equipment at the first sign of trouble, even though the problems are often easily solvable. For example, consider a situation where a business finds that they are no longer able to access files they have stored on a hard drive. In such a case, rather than throwing the hard drive away and giving up, try approaching a business like Secure Backup who can assist you in recovery.
Add Some Plants
Putting some more plants around the office will help to brighten the place up and will also improve the mood of your workers. When deciding on the right plants for your office, make sure you choose something that you trust your office to look after. If you aren’t so organized, cacti are a safer choice as they are far more resilient than most types of plant. Many plants can remove toxins from the air, so they are a natural air filter.
Businesses of all sizes and descriptions are trying to become more environmentally conscious, greener places. If you want to make your office a greener environment, the best thing you can do is to lead by example.