Eco-Friendly Workspace Solutions for Businesses
Looking to improve your brand’s reputation, safeguard your future, and have a positive impact on the planet? Then working to put together an eco-friendly workspace could be just the solution you’ve been searching for. While there are altruistic elements to adjusting your workplace to be more in line with the natural world, there are also sound business reasons for doing so. With consumers increasingly preferring planet-friendly brands, ensuring your workspace works for the planet can offer a competitive advantage over your rivals.
And the best news? What’s good for the planet tends to be good for a business's bottom line, too.
In this post, we’ll look at a few tried-and-tested solutions that can radically change your workplace’s eco-credentials, ensuring that it’s as good for the planet as it is for your business.
Encourage Green Travel
A big chunk of a company’s carbon footprint comes from having their employees travel to and from the office each day. If you have fifty employees, that’s one hundred journeys (there and back) every single day. Multiply that by however many years your employees work for you, and it adds up to a pretty big impact.
As such, one effective way to improve your sustainability record is to encourage your employees to travel in ways that are friendlier to the planet. Could you start a ‘ride to work’ scheme by giving your employees an allowance to buy a bicycle? If that’s not possible, then you could encourage employees to travel to and from work together — that’ll save them tons of money, and the planet tons of unnecessary emissions.
Install Solar Panels
Solar panels have been around for a long time, but they’ve become increasingly popular in recent years, with more businesses than ever utilizing solar energy to power their workspaces.
And their reasons for doing so extend beyond doing what’s right for the planet (though make no mistake: solar panels are just what the planet needs). Solar panels also offer businesses financial incentives, too. The solar system ROI for businesses is pretty impressive, with solar panels paying for themselves in around 3 - 7 years. Once the payback period is over, the business will benefit from what is essentially free electricity for the rest of the system’s lifespan — and given that solar panels can work for twenty-five years or more, that can add up to a small fortune in energy savings.
Start a Green Roof
Operating a business in a more urban environment can make it difficult to feel like you’re working in line with nature’s needs. Starting a green roof is one handy strategy for incorporating a healthy dose of environmentalism into the space. Green roofs offer a wide range of benefits, including simply being aesthetically pleasing — in concrete environments, a green roof can really stand out, and even be a feature that attracts customers. They also offer terrific energy savings in the form of enhanced insulation and can help manage excessive rainfall too. Perhaps more than anything, however, they signify a deeper commitment to being eco-friendly, one that stretches far beyond what most other businesses demonstrate.
Utilizing Natural Elements
Planning to revamp your workplace? Then let biophilic design, which incorporates elements of the natural world, guide the changes. Studies have shown that aside from being good for the environment — it uses natural, sustainable materials — biophilic design can reduce stress, boost well-being, and enhance creativity, all of which can be a game-changer for employee productivity.
Look at Carbon Offsetting
Even the most sustainable of businesses have at least some of a carbon footprint. It’s inevitable. One useful way to compensate for your impact on the planet is to look at carbon offsetting, which provides businesses with the opportunity to balance out their carbon impact. From forestry projects that plant trees to methane capture projects, there’s no shortage of carbon offset projects to contribute to.
Create a Team
Finally, look at putting together an eco-focused team within your business. You’ll find that not only do many employees care passionately about the environment, but that they’re eager that the business cares about the environment, too. You should have no problem finding people who want to be in charge of ensuring that the business moves forward in a planet-boosting way. Ultimately, working to make your business as earth-friendly as possible isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a process that needs to be continually assessed and updated. By putting together an internal team, you can ensure that your business always stays in line with the latest eco-friendly trends and developments.