How to Improve Your Environmental Footprint in the Office

With the climate crisis worsening, many of us are trying to adopt a more sustainable approach at home to improve our environmental footprint. However, this care isn’t generally mirrored in our workplace. Most of us don’t technically ‘own’ the place where we work. This means that greener and environmental processes are often let slide.

Instead of leaving your computer on all night and printing pages of unnecessary work, here are some ways in which you can make your workplace more environmentally friendly.

Choose energy-efficient lighting

One easy way to radically reduce the energy usage in your office is to switch to lighting that requires less energy. Apart from choosing LED light bulbs, maximising natural light is always a great idea, as well as installing motion sensors that will switch lights off when not being used and dimmable lights that can be adjusted to different situations and lighting needs.

If this isn’t possible, make sure all lights are turned off properly before leaving for the day and lights are turned off in unused rooms to save energy.

Promote a paperless workplace

While we’re getting better at putting documents and communication online, there’s still a long way to go when it comes to being a completely paperless world. Before pressing print, ask yourself:

• Why are you printing this?
• Do you need to print this?
• Will there be a noticeable difference if you don’t print this?
• Can you access this in other ways to save you from printing (e.g. downloading as a pdf, saving to your computer)?

If you need to print, try and do it as energy efficient as possible. This might mean printing on both sides of the paper, only printing part of a document and printing in black and white.

Educate your staff and yourself around recycling

We all know that cardboard goes in one bin and general waste goes in another, but there are many more complexities now when it comes to recycling. With advances in technology and processes, what we can recycle has changed. Educating yourself and your staff around recycling protocols – even basic ones – will help your office become more sustainable.

Our top recycling tips:

Think outside the box. You’ll be surprised at what you can recycle. When your electronics reach the end of their lifecycle, research where you can take them to be recycled.

Place recycling bins around the office and educate your staff on what goes in which bin.

Look into the recycling of soft plastics. Soft plastic refers (generally) to anything you can scrunch in your hand. Think wrappers, frozen food bags, pasta packaging, plastic bags, cling wrap, etc. However, these can only be recycled by selected stores, so be sure to take all your soft plastics to somewhere near you.

When you’re recycling things that once contained food, make sure there are no traces of food residue leftover, as this can determine whether something is recyclable or not.

Avoid single-use items such as coffee cups and crockery

There are a lot of cafes now that encourage customers to bring their own reusable cup for a free upgrade or discount. Investing in a reusable coffee cup isn’t only environmentally friendly, but you can also get some pretty funky designs!

Aside from encouraging reusable coffee cups, stock the office kitchen with cutlery and crockery for their lunch, rather than paper or plastic plates and utensils.

Encourage greener commutes

Encouraging your employees – especially those who live close by – to reconsider their commute can be a great way to go green in the office. Employees commuting to the office adds up your business’s carbon emissions. Where possible, try walking or cycling to work. Not only does it save on these carbon emissions, but it’s good exercise too! If these aren’t feasible options, consider opting for public transport or even carpooling with colleagues. These alternatives lessen a vehicle’s CO2 emissionsby spreading it out amongst each rider.

Provide organic and FairTrade food and drinks

Providing some yummy snacks and drinks in the communal kitchen is a great way to get your employees to opt for better food choices. By having organic or FairTrade food and drink on hand, your business is ensuring that they are sourcing goods that were produced in the most sustainable way – both in terms of growing the food and providing fair employment conditions to local producers in developing countries.

Reassess office equipment

Reassessing the appliances and equipment in your office is a great way to see what is using the most energy in your office. It’s almost always possible to choose more environmentally friendly infrastructures and equipment. This new equipment can include:

• Printers
• Air conditioners
• Fridges
• Lights
• Office stationery

Consider your computer

Did you know that laptops are 80% more energy-efficient than desktop computers? This is basically a no brainer when choosing equipment for your office. Laptops also mean that an employee can work from home if required (which saves on CO2 emissions!) Setting your computer to enter a power-saving mode after a short amount of idle time means you won’t be wasting unnecessary energy when sitting in a meeting, for example. When leaving for the day, remember to unplug all devices, turn off power at the wall and shut down your computer. Shutting down your computer means completely turning it off – not just closing the lid of your laptop or waiting for the screen to go dark!

Optimise the temperature

Employee complaints around the temperature of a room are common in office environments. Usually, there’s someone who runs hot, someone who runs cold and everything in between! It’s all about finding the right balance to suit everyone. Try opening the windows (if you can) when it’s a little stuffy rather than blasting the air or encouraging employees to wear an extra layer when you know it will be cooler, rather than cranking up the heater.

If you’re trying to improve your environmental footprint in the office and at home, there are plenty of things you can try. The team at Biz Corporates are constantly striving to improve our environmental footprint. Read more about our corporate social responsibility here.