How to Make Your Business More Eco-Friendly
by Natasha Christou Digital Marketing ConsultantAs we continue to work towards the government’s net
zero emissions by 2050 commitment, businesses are naturally becoming increasingly
aware of the need to be more eco-friendly. Other strategies, such as the Clean
Growth Strategy, which aims to promote economic growth at the same time as
decreasing emissions, mean that the focus on having a positive effect on the
environment is now higher than ever.
While businesses may have plans in place to ‘do their bit’,
many could still do more. So, what could that mean? Let’s take a look:
Work from home
Working from home is often seen as a luxury. However, due to
lockdown following the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have found that it is
indeed possible for their employees to work from home. In May, bosses at Twitter decided
their staff would be entitled to work from home ‘forever’. This ‘era
defining’ decision followed similar announcements from large companies such as
Google, who had extended their working from home policies until the end of the
year.
Allowing your staff to work from home eliminates the
commute. Globally, transport
accounts for a quarter of our CO2 emissions. On average, a car fuelled by petrol in the UK
produces the equivalent of 180g of CO2 every kilometre. Diesel cars
produce 173g of CO2/km on average. While using public transport for
your commute may help lower the amount of vehicles on the road, allowing your
staff to work from home can obviously eliminate this all together.
It’s not just helping the world we live in either. In the
past 12 months, ‘work from home’ has increased in search volume on Google.
While there was a spike during the initial lockdown period, there were still a
larger number of searches for this term in May 2020 compared to May 2019. This
indicates that more people are looking for the opportunity to stay home to
carry out their role. Offering such a ‘luxury’ could help keep your staff happy
while also allowing your company to be more eco-friendly.
Energy
Of course, not every industry is suited to having the option
to work from home. The manufacturing industry, for example, requires staff to
operate heavy machinery to complete their roles. That doesn’t mean that you
can’t make changes to the way you operate to help you become more eco-friendly.
Cleveland Bridge, a steel fabricator and constructor of
bridges and complex structures, set out to reduce its carbon footprint and made
simple changes in its offices. Chris Droogan, Managing Director of the company,
said: “Our maintenance team started to recycle all grey water. This
significantly improved our water utilisation.
“Another example was our plan to prevent lights being left
on unnecessarily. We installed zonal, passive infra-red and sound sensitive
switching as well as LED lighting throughout our offices. Within operations we
installed LED lighting, providing significant carbon reduction when multiplied
over our operational area of 30,000m2. We also upgraded our heating
system to enable greater zonal control and improved efficiency.”
Another way is to switch your portable generators.
Switching to LPG (liquid petroleum gas) generators can help many industries.
Tom’s Kitchen, a portable food van, is a great example of this. Its owner,
Metin Sonmez, expressed the benefits of switching to LPG from diesel: “I opted
for an LPG model because it just made better business sense. Within just a
matter of weeks, I was making fuel cost savings of around 60% — on a weekly
basis that’s a saving of £116.00. The cost of the generator paid for itself
within five weeks and the best bit is, the generator just keeps on going for
days on end, so I never have to worry about running out of power when I need it
the most.”
Such generators have the same power and performance as
petrol generators, with the added benefit of up to 40 per cent fuel savings.
Changing your methods
Training your staff to work smarter can help you lower your
carbon footprint. While you may choose to change to energy-saving lights,
leaving them on at all times is still going to have a detrimental effect. Make
sure you bring in certain methods and ensure your business is efficient.
It could be as simple as implementing a recycling system —
if you don’t have one already — and ensuring your staff follow it. Are your
waste bins clearly labelled? Do your staff know that their takeaway pizza boxes
at lunch time, for example, can’t
be recycled?
Another simple fix is to turn your office ‘paperless’. In
the last four decades, the use of paper worldwide has risen by 400
per cent. This has led to rapid deforestation, so turning paperless can
help save our trees and allow them to continue playing their critical role in
absorbing CO2 from our atmosphere.
Each of these points can help your business become more
eco-friendly and improve the environment we live in. It’s a distinct
possibility that, as the years go by, there will be more stringent laws put in
place for businesses, so get ahead of the curve and ensure you’re doing all you
can in the present to avoid a possible issue in the future.
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Created on Jul 21st 2020 05:04. Viewed 396 times.