How To Make Your Business More Environmentally Friendly

Whether your business is a restaurant, an office, or something else, there are ways you can make it a more eco-friendly place. Further, these measures don’t have to be complicated and some of them can even allow you to earn revenue from your recyclables. If you’d like some ideas to make your business a more environmentally-friendly place, take a look at the following four ideas.

Donate Your Extras

Your company’s old computers, odd-man-out chairs, desks, and more can benefit other businesses if you donate them to a charitable organization rather than send them to the dump. While these items may not be of use to you, there are plenty of people, companies, and charitable organizations that would jump on the chance to have these items at a reasonable price.

Recycle Your Waste

Recycling allows you to reduce your waste footprint. From paper to plastic, practically every business has something that it can recycle. Your company’s recycling program can even offer office-wise incentives. For example, give out bonuses to the departments that recycle the most. It’s possible to even partner with companies like Mid America Paper Recycling Co. to earn money from your recycling efforts, making your recycling efforts good for your company’s bottom line, too.

Reduce Your Energy Costs

Reducing the amount of energy your company uses plays a big role in your company’s efforts to become more eco-friendly. One simple thing you can do is to encourage all employees to work with the lights out during the day (provided they have windows in their offices that lets the sun in).

Install energy-efficient LED lights all over the office, and speaking of lights, set up the lights in your bathroom, office kitchen, photocopy rooms, and more to come on only when someone is using those rooms. Finally, encourage employees to unplug their electronics at the end of the day to reduce their energy waste.

Reduce the Commute

There are a number of ways you can reduce your company’s commuting requirements. Employees who can work at home should work at home more often. This is a simple way to reduce their commute and the gas that goes with it.

If it’s not possible for your employees to work at home, then offer them incentives to change the manner in which they commute. For example, encourage them to ride their bikes to work, to carpool, or to take public transit. Tie these modes of transportation to an incentive program that works for your business structure to encourage participation in this program.

Making your company a more environmentally-friendly place can be as simple as turning out office lights during the day. However, larger measures, like implementing a recycling program or an alternative commute program, take more time to implement but are ultimately worth it. It’s additionally worth mentioning that you don’t have to implement these programs all at once. To make this transition more comfortable, you can roll the programs out one or two at a time. Every little bit helps.