Getting Green At Work: Five Ways To Make Your Office More Eco Friendly

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Almost everyone is doing what they can to be more eco-friendly in this day and age. If you aren’t making some attempt to save the planet, chances are your employees won’t be happy with you. If you’d like to prioritise making your office more eco friendly in manageable ways, here are a few tips.

Use Less Paper

First and foremost, it’s time to start using less paper. If you’re in the habit of printing everything out, that habit needs to stop: if you want to be able to take your documents around easily, why not use a tablet instead? You can easily use tools to highlight and make notes on e-documents as well as physical ones.

One pro of using less paper is that storage will become much easier in the office. An inbox overflowing with paper will be a thing of the past, and you won’t need to worry about marking out space in your office for filing cabinets, as everything will be stored on the cloud instead. It’s more convenient and better for Mother Earth.

Make Sure You Recycle

Recycling in the office is vitally important, from putting out different bins in the kitchen to electronic recycling when your electronic products end up breaking and no longer being usable. Make sure that the kitchen bins are clearly labelled so that people don’t throw their trash in the wrong place. You should also make sure that there’s a paper recycle bin in the office—no matter how eco friendly you try to be, it’s almost impossible to be entirely paperless.

Hand Out Eco Friendly Swag

When it comes to handing out swag, most companies tend to go for items like mouse mats—but who really uses mouse mats now, anyway? If you’re handing out branded merchandise to your employees, make sure that you’re focusing on items that are eco friendly. You can get pens and pencils made from recycled cups—and you could hand out reusable mugs that can be used at coffee shops and metal and glass reusable water bottles as well. 

Use Less Energy

Using less energy is an easy way to be more eco friendly. This might be using more natural light instead of having overhead lamps blaring down on your employees all day—and it might also mean using energy efficient bulbs instead of the older ones, which blow out more quickly and use up more energy anyway. Open windows instead of using air conditioning, and make sure that all leaks and drips are fixed so you don’t waste water.

Organise A Car Pool

If your employees all tend to come to work separately in their own cars, why not organise car pools in different areas so they can cut down on gas usage and come to work together? You could also set up a bike hire program so that people can cycle to work, along with season pass loans so that they can use public transport more cheaply. These will all cut down on gas emissions from cars.

Being eco friendly at work doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult—these tips should make sure your office is a happier and greener place.

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