Save Your Business Money By Going Green

All businesses are always looking for ways to reduce their running costs and save money. You can save your company money and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time. With some simple changes, you can make the business more environmentally friendly and save some big money. 

Change Cleaning Products

Provide your housekeeping team with greener cleaning products. Many traditional products use a lot of harsh, toxic chemicals. When breathed in, these chemicals are dangerous to the staff using them and have a negative impact on the environment. Cleaner products are non-toxic, making them safer for the staff using them, and kinder on the plant too. 

Use Eco-Friendly Promotional Materials

If, like a lot of companies, you use a lot of promotional items like tote bags and notebooks to advertise your business, try and use ones with more conscience. Whether you keep stacks of promotional notepads and a pot of pens in all your meeting rooms, or give out lots of keyrings, water bottles and bottle openers at trade shows, you could be generating a lot of waste. Browse now to find promotional items made from recycled materials, and that can be recycled again instead of contributing to more waste. Provide promotional items that are actually useful, so they hopefully get used instead of immediately being thrown away. A free pen is always useful, as are stationery items like pads of post-it notes. These are more likely to make it to people’s desks instead of items like tote bags covered in your logo which get left in the boot of the car and then thrown away. 

Change Up Commutes

Cars are one of the worst offenders for damaging the environment. If your staff usually drive to work, think about you can encourage them not to. 

If you can, situate your office within walking distance of a train station. Offer to buy yearly travel passes for your staff to use the bus or train to get to work. Staff can pay you back in installments each month from their wages. 

Provide bike racks and showers for those who cycle to work, and consider joining a Cycle To Work scheme. This would mean you bought bikes for staff, who would then pay you back in the form of salary deductions. 

Reduce Plastic Waste

Offices can use a lot of single use plastic, from disposable cups in the water machine to plastic trays for sandwiches for meetings. Make an effort to cut back on the plastic you use. Don’t refill the sleeves of plastic cups in the water machine and instead ask staff to use mugs or glasses from the kitchens. You could even supply branded water bottles that they can reuse. 

For meetings, order food from companies who use recycled or biodegradable packaging instead of plastic. Instead of bottled water, fit the office with a filter tap, and fill a jug with water, ice and fruit. It looks smarter, and doesn’t use the plastic that bottles would.