One thing that unifies everyone on this planet is our planet! Does your company practice eco friendliness? Do you recycle? Compost? Reuse? Depending on your industry, it might be easier or harder for you to partake in environmentally friendly measures. But there are small, yet significant, steps each and every business can take to protect our planet for future generations.
For many, driving is the only solution to getting to your job, either because public transportation doesn't fully accommodate your needs/locations or because your job requires a truck bed to carry parts in. According to an EPA study, carbon dioxide emissions in the USA are higher than many other countries. Transportation gases account for 27% of greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 and have the potential to trigger devastating ecological transitions.
Although you may rely on a vehicle for transportation to and from jobs, there are a couple of alternate options when it comes to travel. The type of car you drive is a large factor in how much gas you have to use. Remaining mindful about how much gas you use every day is not only beneficial to the environment, but also your budget. In "Use Less Gas With These Simple Tricks of Efficient Drivers," State Farm offers some basics to ensuring you save gas whenever you can. For example, by keeping your car maintained, you ensure that it drives optimally, which can help cut fuel costs. Turning off the car while parked can also save you money and energy usage. Meanwhile, completing as many of your errands during one trip can help you save time and money because your car runs more effectively after it has been on for awhile.
If you work on AC units, you are familiar with the laws prohibiting a person from throwing an AC unit in the trash and the EPA's regulations on refrigerant. Kristen Turner, author of Total Home Supply's blog explains different resourceful ways to dispose of AC units and why there are laws surrounding the disposal of AC units. R-22 refrigerants are no longer up to EPA's standards due to their corrosive qualities.
AC units are just one example of a product that you may need to find alternate solutions for getting rid of parts, while wasting as little as possible. Whether you find yourself donating your appliance or unit, sending it to particular scrap yard or recycling center, or selling it or parts of it for spare cash, you extend the life of the parts and product, in turn helping the environment. Community matters when it comes to helping the environment. If you have information about how best to get rid of appliances or parts, share it with your community and help the environment.
Perhaps, if you are a lawyer, your company has gone mostly paperless. Instead of filing thousands of papers every day, you have a database to store all of that information. Maybe with billing, you no longer print receipts, but send emails to clients. Either way, reduction in paper use helps decrease pollution and the destruction of forests.
In a previous blog series by Stevie Valle, we talked about a variety of paperless solutions for your business. In "Going Paperless, Payment Solutions," Stevie discusses a couple of easy tools to use instead of paper payments. For instance, PayPal and Square are great alternatives for payments and are cost effective. Since this blog from a year and a half ago, you have access to a few alternatives too now: WePay, Skrill, Intuit, and Braintree to name a few.
As well as making paperless payments, you may want to consider paperless payroll. In "Going Paperless: Payroll," Stevie mentions a few options for online payroll solutions like ADP, Equifax, and Gusto. By making a quick Google search, you might find just the solution for minimizing paper use that fits your company's billing needs. If these payment solutions don't fit your company's needs, then digital record keeping solutions might be better suited for your company's eco friendly endeavors. Regardless of your company's billing and record-keeping platform, keeping in mind the amount of waste you could save by going paperless might be economically beneficial to consider, even factoring in the costs of internet usage and electricity.
One way many companies save energy is by minimizing the use of energy in their offices. For instance, Apple is one of the leading companies in eco friendliness, utilizing solar powered energy and clean resources to power their primary sources.
However, maybe solar panels aren't the best solution for your office to be energy efficient. Sometimes the best way to conserve energy is by making a few simple adjustments, like replacing your average light bulbs with higher functioning, more energy-efficient, and cost effective LED lights. Perhaps your office can afford motion-sensored lights in the bathrooms or hand-driers or hand towels rather than paper towels. Instead of having bottled water in the break room, having a filtered water system to decrease the waste of plastic.
Not only is being an eco friendly business beneficial to the well-being of the planet, but there are laws in place to help protect our environment that are imperative to follow. Eco friendliness is cost effective, secure, safe, and helps keep your office in order, as Stevie mentions in "Going Paperless: Benefits For Your Business." Not only is it important to care about our environment to ensure that future generations will have access to resources, it will also will save you money to conserve energy. Whether you have the AC/heater on a schedule, you turn out the lights every time you leave the room, or you incentivize your employees to use public transportation, this will in turn save you and your company countless dollars.
For more information, tips, and statistics, visit the EPA's website and for tips about the upcoming holidays, visit EPA's "Winter Tips".
If you have any eco friendly measures that you and your company use, share in the comments below!