Extend your environmental stewardship by encouraging green practices at work. How can your company serve as a shining example and lead toward environmental sustainability? At Benchmark Gensuite®, we provide ESG software and sustainability solutions that help our users engage in sustainable business practices. To get you started, we’ve put together these best practices that your company can use to demonstrate your commitment to the environment and reduce your carbon footprint. Here are five workplace practices for better environmental sustainability.
1. Encourage employees to use public transportation.
According to an American Public Transportation Association study, a solo commuter can reduce CO2 emissions by 20 pounds per day by switching to public transportation. That’s more than 4,800 pounds in a year! Other ways to change up daily commutes include carpooling, taking a bike or working remotely. And by saving money normally spent on gas, your employees will feel good about saving the planet and their budgets.
2. Change to eco-friendly office lighting.
It’s a quick fix that’s as easy as screwing in a lightbulb. LED lighting uses 75% less energy and doesn’t contain toxic gases like other lighting alternatives. It also lasts 25 times longer and is much cheaper, helping your company save thousands of dollars on energy bills.
Besides using LED light bulbs, you can start using smart lighting technologies such as lighting dimmers and occupancy/motion sensors that can significantly improve environmental sustainability in the workplace. However, remember that regulating office lighting doesn’t always have to be tech-oriented.
Encourage staff to open the blinds during the daytime; natural lighting is very beneficial not just for environmental practices but for staff health and wellbeing. Another sustainable workplace strategy is to turn off the lights when leaving the office or when not in use.
3. Switch to post-consumer waste (PCW) paper, paper products, and packaging.
One of the easiest ways to adopt sustainable work practices is by changing how you use paper in the office. Paper products and packaging are an inevitable requirement in any business, especially for manufacturing industries. As you might know, not every office can go paperless, but you can choose the kind of paper you use. Recycling is the answer.
Maybe you already recycle paper, but do you use recycled paper? The paper production industry is the fifth largest energy consumer in the world. PCW recycled paper uses 45% less energy and produces half the waste of the traditional papermaking process, reducing overall consumption from production and consumers.
4. Become involved in your community.
As big believers in community involvement, the Benchmark Gensuite® team hosts quarterly events to support and improve the environments in which we live. There are many ways to become involved, including community cleanup. Initiate within your organization and leverage the corporate community mindset to incorporate environmentally sustainable work practices.
Start by educating your business community. Get help from your marketing and HR teams to hold seminars and webinars to inform your employees why workplace sustainability matters and what measures they can take for the same. Additionally, search for sustainability-focused events in your area and encourage your team to join. As a bonus, it’s a great way to bond with colleagues while improving the place you call home.
5. Perform an energy audit to identify resource and cost savings opportunities.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, sealing leaks and cracks at your workplace can lower heating and cooling costs by 20%. Benchmark Gensuite®’s Sustainability Prospector tool can help your team identify such problem areas in an environmental impact discovery process. Benchmark Gensuite® offers an entire Sustainability & Energy Management.
Program to measure and track resource usage, set environmental goals and drive program improvements. This program has allowed subscribers to identify more than 3,500 reduction projects with cost savings totaling $75 million. When totaled between Benchmark Gensuite® users, sites could reduce 350,000 metric tons of CO2 uses.
There are many practical, cost-saving, and competitive benefits to going green with your workplace. Ultimately, the greatest benefit is preserving the planet we call home for our own generation and for those that follow. At Benchmark Gensuite®, we respect your company’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability. We partner with organizations to establish and reduce single- and enterprise-wide carbon footprints and ensure compliance with air, water, and waste management.
Updated from a blog post originally published in April 2017.
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