With Earth Day here once again, it’s a perfect time to remind businesses looking to cut costs that going green is a smart way to get more green in your revenue stream. Embracing the sustainability of people and technology in these five tips ultimately should improve your bottom lines.
- Smart Energy Savings
- Install light-emitting diode (LED) or compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) light bulbs. Their lifetime expectancy is much longer and less toxic than traditional bulbs, saving both you and Mother Earth.
- Install smart power strips that sense when appliances or electronics are off. By doing this, you help eliminate 1% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions dispersed by so-called “vampire power.”
- Smart Water Savings
- Consider drought-tolerant plants that are native to your area to save on watering costs.
- If you’re supplying your employees with bottled water, switch to a water-filtration system to save expenses and reduce plastic piling up in landfills. If you have it in the budget, give your employees a reusable water bottle branded with the company’s logo.
- Go Paperless
- Begin using a document management system , allowing you to ditch the copier once and for all.
- Paper copies cost between 5 and 12 cents per page, and one tree produces about 8,333 sheets of paper. For each tree you save by going paperless, you save roughly between $416 and $1,000.
- Smart Transportation Savings
- Promote walking or biking to work with your employees. This saves on gas and parking costs, while improving the overall health of your workforce, which can have a positive impact on your insurance plan.
- Carpooling incentives work and create community, while also helping to reduce CO2 emissions.
- Some cities are offering car-sharing programs, which have helped to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 482,000 tons.
- Smart Recycling Tips
- Reduce, reuse, recycle. That’s the saying taught to children, but implementing this simple concept in your workplace helps to create jobs in the recycling space while reducing pollution.
- Donate or recycle electronics, as such devices contains mercury and other toxins.
By taking the necessary steps this Earth Day, you can make a lasting impression on the world in which you live as well as the business you operate. Going green is also a smart way to leverage award opportunities, recruit millennials and instill a reputation as a world partner.
