Tips For An Environmentally-Friendly Office

Every office manager wants to make their office more environmentally friendly in a way that will have a positive effect on productivity and expenses. Here are some tips about how to create an eco-conscious workspace.

Outline Energy Efficiency And Waste Reduction Initiatives

Your staff is going to be more likely to get on board with green initiatives when management identifies these procedures as being part of official company policy. Consider adding information about what’s expected of every employee to support energy efficiency and waste reduction by incorporating it in your employee handbook or official job descriptions. Formalizing what’s expected of employees in written policies will help ensure that employees will take these practices seriously and demonstrate their best reasonable efforts to follow them.

Delegate Responsibility

Consider assigning a point-person for implementing and overseeing ways to have an environmentally-friendly office. Having someone in charge will clarify responsibility, and it will be useful to have a single point-person focused on evaluating how the rest of your staff is doing with green initiatives. 

Minimize Energy Use

There are a lot of steps that you can take to use less electricity throughout the course of your workday. Consider adding LED lighting; it requires significantly less electricity than traditional fluorescent lighting. As an added bonus, most employees and visitors will find it to be more aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, you can install motion sensor controlled light switches to turn on and off when employees enter and leave a room.

Use Renewable Energy Sources

Installing solar panels is an affordable way to help your office go green while also reducing ongoing operational expenses. Savings incentives such as investment tax credits, state tax credits, and municipal rebates may be available to help offset the initial cost of installation. Working with a renewable power source will give your business a substantive and perhaps marketable claim to green operations that your customer base will appreciate.

Consider Energy-Efficient Heating And Cooling Improvements

Upgrading your office’s heating or cooling system may seem like a significant investment, but if your system is old to begin with, it really may be worth considering an energy-saving upgrade. When a system failure occurs, you need to get service immediately in order to keep your office up and running, and emergency repairs can be among the costliest. Switching to a new energy-efficient system will lessen the likelihood of unexpected costly service needs while also providing ongoing monthly savings on energy expenses. Ultimately, it’s a great way to reduce the energy expended on controlling your office’s temperature without negatively impacting your staff’s comfort.

Conserve Water

Water-saving devices such as faucet aerators, motion-sensor and time-metered faucets, and low-pressure toilet dams can help reduce how much water your office building uses on a monthly basis. Even regular ongoing maintenance such as tightening faucet valves and replacing toilet flappers can help eliminate unnecessary water waste.

Minimize Printer Waste

A great way to get individual employees to make a concerted effort towards reducing paper waste is to assign printing codes that are unique to each user or department. Your IT or printer/copier support vendor can help you set up your computers’ print function to prompt users to enter in a three-to-six-digit code in order to release each print job. This added measure of accountability may help deter individuals from excessive paper waste. It may also provide an added benefit of helping you to efficiently allocate administrative expenses by tracking the volume of printing used for each project or department.

Reduce Breakroom And Restroom Waste

Eliminating items like foam and paper cups from your office or breakroom will reduce unnecessary office waste. Employees can use regular mugs and containers, while disposable products should be kept on hand just for clients and guests.

Make Recycling Readily Available

The more recycling bins you have available in your office, the more likely your employees will be to use them. Try to keep recycling bins near every workstation, and ensure that somebody takes responsibility for emptying them.

Subscribe to our Trusted Health Club newsletter for more information about natural living tips, natural health, oral health and skincare. If you are looking for more health resources make sure to check out the Trusted Health Resources list.  

Written By:

Paisley Hansen is a freelance writer and expert in health, fitness, and growing young. When she isn’t writing she can usually be found reading a good book or hitting the gym. She loves hearing from readers so feel free to contact her through Facebook.

Reviewed By:

Founder Ray Spotts has a passion for all things natural and has made a life study of nature as it relates to health and well-being. Ray became a forerunner bringing products to market that are extraordinarily effective and free from potentially harmful chemicals and additives. For this reason Ray formed Trusted Health Products, a company you can trust for clean, effective, and healthy products. Ray is an organic gardener, likes fishing, hiking, and teaching and mentoring people to start new businesses. You can get his book for free, “How To Succeed In Business Based On God’s Word,” at www.rayspotts.com.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay