May 01, 2017

18 Ways To Reduce The Carbon Footprint In Your Business This Spring

Around the world workplaces looking at how to reduce their carbon footprint and their impact on the environment.

A carbon footprint is an environmental measure of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is one of the most significant effects of increased greenhouse gas emissions (caused primarily by carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas).

A carbon footprint workplace reduction strategy educates everyone about climate change and promotes environmentally-friendly workplace processes and work behaviour.

Here are practical and cost effective ways to reduce carbon footprint for businesses.

Energy Efficiency

  • Install energy efficient lighting (LED or other energy-saving light bulbs). Switch off lights when not in use either manually or through automatic sensors.
  • Purchase energy-saving models of office equipment such as computers, LCD monitors, printers and photocopiers.
  • Better insulate the physical workplace with energy efficient windows and doors. Seal gaps in floorboards.
  • Encourage everyone to switch off all of their equipment at the end of the work day. Plug desk equipment into multi-socket extension leads, which make it easier to turn off everything at once.
  • Manage heating and cooling systems intelligently. Turn the thermostat up or down by one or two degrees depending on the season – to reduce energy demand. Set the thermostat up or down by 10 to 15 degrees at night when no one is around.
  • Keep all equipment well maintained and at their highest efficiency.

Fuel Usage

  • Promote sustainable travel. Rather than drive, encourage employees to cycle, walk, or take public transport.
  • Help employees coordinate car sharing.
  • If the workplace has a fleet of vehicles, use the most energy-efficient models possible, such as electric cars.
  • Ask employees to work remotely from home occasionally or when it makes sense. Be sure security software is up-to-date on all mobile devices and office computers.
  • Reassess business travel requirements and consider video conferencing instead of air travel. Invest in good video conferencing technology.

Third Parties

  • Adopt a sustainable procurement policy such as purchasing eco-label products.
  • Partner with companies that have a sustainability policy as well. For example, document shredding leader Shred-it has made its vehicle fleet more environmentally-friendly through technologies that help reduce emissions and fuel consumption.

Waste Reduction

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  • Review your company’s packaging of products. Are items over-packaged, and can packaging be reduced?
  • Only print documents if absolutely necessary. Use the two-sided print feature. Reduce paper usage by converting as much as possible to digital.
  • Put a recycling programme for cans, plastic, and glass, in place.
  • Donate used office equipment to charity and non-profit organisations. Rather than recycle old and out of date computers and other electronics (which puts confidential information on hard drives at risk), speak to your document shredding expert about secure hard drive shredding services.
  • Be sure that paper recycling is a secure process that protects confidential and private information. Partner with a trustworthy document destruction company that guarantees paper is recycled once it has been securely shredded. The company should provide locked consoles so that disposing of paper is convenient and simple.

Download our free guide for more tips to make your business greener and more secure.

Start Protecting Your Business

To learn more about how Shred-it can protect your documents and hard drives, please contact us to get a free quote and data security survey.