How To Create An Eco-Friendly Office

*This is a collaborative post.

If you run an office, you should try to think about every aspect of your employee’s habits, and how you can support them to be more environmentally friendly. 

We all have a responsibility to be eco-friendly. We all know the old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” and though running an office doesn’t make you responsible for employee habits, supporting their green habits is certainly the right thing to do.

In this guide, we’re exploring some of the more obvious environmental impacts like paper, but also some things you may not have considered like how bean-to-cup coffee machine options combined with reusable mugs and cups can be extremely helpful.

Go Paperless When Possible

Do you really need to print that document? Does that 40-page proposal need a paper copy for someone to sit and paw over or is there a more efficient way of doing things?

Paperless doesn’t just mean getting rid of printing and reducing the use of paper notes, it can also mean things like avoiding paper cups next to your bean-to-cup coffee machine which can be extremely wasteful and damaging to the environment. 

Consider Tea and Coffee Habits

Most offices have facilities for a coffee break. Your employees likely make use of this whenever they can, and you might not have thought that much about the environmental impact in the past.

Some coffee machines encourage the use of single-use plastics such as cups and coffee pods that can be less-than-ideal for the environment.

If you’re serious about reducing your impact then something like a bean-to-cup coffee machine might be the best option for your office. You can encourage employees to use reusable cups whenever they make use of the office coffee machine, to reduce the environmental negatives.

Rethink Travel

This is definitely something a lot of offices have been doing in recent years. Do you really need to travel? Can a meeting be turned into an online meeting or a phone call? Can you encourage your employees to work from home?

Some of the statistics regarding working from home have actually proven to be quite surprising. A lot of businesses find that their employees are as effective, or even more so if they are working from home as opposed to spending time in the office.

Be Efficient With Heating and Cooling

Heating and cooling doesn’t just mean a large expense for your business, it also means a lot for the environment, with some offices wasting a lot of fuel on heating and cooling.

There are ways to be more efficient, such as creating a smaller space in the office that you cool, or even moving to a smaller office so that the upkeep and heating or cooling is not quite as expensive and environmentally impactful.

If you can, encourage shorter working hours or make sure all employees are in the office at the same time, as this can mean fewer hours of heating and cooling your space.

If you are really serious about your environmental impact, you can also choose to work with energy suppliers with an environmentally responsible outlook. Even if this is more expensive, it can be a wonderful way of offsetting the negative impacts of your office.

Use Responsible Office Supplies

Office supplies are often one of the most damaging things about your office. The sort of things that constantly get thrown away or consist of single-use plastics and items that can’t be recycled.

You can look out for specifically recycled office supplies such as paper made out of recycled materials. Encourage people not to use single-use plastic supplies and invest more in items that will last longer and provide reusable benefits in the workplace.

Give People Recycling Options 

One of the best ways to make sure you are doing the right thing when it comes to office habits is to ensure that the right recycling options are happening to any waste you generate.

While you may be able to encourage your employees not to use plastics, for instance, it isn’t necessarily easy to prevent them from using these kinds of plastics in their lunch items and other personal items.

So, what you can do is provide them with the option to recycle the items that they bring into work with them. At the very least, a general recycling bin is required, but you can also make your office even more environmentally friendly by providing specific recycling options for paper, plastic, and more.

Summary

A lot of offices just provide the very basics when it comes to environmental options. Sometimes, this is just so they can look like they’re doing the right thing. The truth is that if you truly care, there are so many extra steps you can take in order to try and create a more eco-friendly office space.

The above steps are just some of the methods for you to turn your office into an eco-friendly space and help give you peace of mind that you’re doing the right thing.