The HR Benefits Pulling Together To Keep Your Office Green
Recycling is all well and good, but taking steps to reduce waste is even better! Adapting your business practices to be more sustainable and ecologically friendly is better still! This is, after all, an era in which the spotlight is very much on the corporate giants and the ways in which they’re trying to make their business practices more sustainable and environmentally aware. From exclusively using recycled paper and plastics to turning waste oil into biodiesel there are many ways in which big business is bowing to the consumer demand for environmental ethics and global sustainability. In this climate, your business can benefit greatly from pushing its green initiatives to the forefront.
Aside from the PR Coup, the added value in your consumers knowing that your practices are sustainable and the knowledge that your business is doing its part to make the world a better place, banding together to adapt your practices in the name of environmental awareness is a great tool for boosting morale and cementing brand identity too!
The Five Rs
When it comes to keeping your office green it’s important to remember the 5 Rs;
- Reuse
- Recycle
- Reduce
- Repair
- Rethink
A great way for the entire workforce to pull together is to challenge each and every employee to think of ways in which they can incorporate these into their daily operations (this includes you too!). Whether it’s refilling rather than replacing printer ink cartridges, arranging for a metal collection company to remove used soft drinks cans for recycling, a small change suggested by each employee could quickly add up to big change for your business. Giving each employee a level of ownership and autonomy over this will help it to be enthusiastically embraced while boosting morale.
Adding a competitive element
Once a stratagem for reducing waste, recycling and other ecological best practice is developed, it’s important for each employee to track and be accountable for their contribution. A points system is a useful way to do this. Every time they recycle their waste, use a reusable pen instead of a disposable pen or reuse a plastic water cup they gain a point. Every time they contribute to landfill waste or print out an email that didn’t need to be printed, they lose a point.
Keep it paperless
Fortunately, the 21st century workplace is creeping further and further into the digital realm, but there’s still a dearth of waste paper in the workforce. Indeed a staggering 80.6m tonnes of printing and writing paper enters the waste stream every year in the UK alone. Thus, keeping your marketing strategy entirely digital and reducing paper use in your business practices can not only help the planet but help to cut the cost of business waste which costs UK businesses £15bn a year.
Eating green
Whatever you’re doing with your paper and metal, it amounts to little if these same practices are not taking place in the cafeteria. Meat and dairy products are inherently wasteful, with the intensive farming of cattle in particular generating a massive water footprint. Cutting back on meat and dairy products in the workplace and upping the fresh fruits and veggies will not only help the environment but make your cafeteria a healthier place with happy, productive and well nourished employees.
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