The increasing level of pollution and global warming is a matter of great concern. Every living being is severely affected by these environmental issues.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, ‘In 2014, the top carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters were China, the United States, the European Union, India, the Russian Federation, and Japan.’

Most of the carbon footprint leading to global warming is generated by industries and organizations. It is now high time that businesses take some steps to reduce their carbon footprint and become more environmentally friendly. Taking an eco-friendly approach towards your business will not only help the planet but is also beneficial for companies in several ways.

To start your journey towards an environment-friendly business, you can take the following measures.

Make a Policy to Reuse and Recycle

The first and easiest step you can take for your business is to create a policy on reusing the supplies and doing proper recycling. Pay close attention to the things you use every day and make some changes to it. Then, set up an effective garbage management for the things that can’t be recycled.

For instance, instead of purchasing pens every week, you can replace them with pencils or can buy refill packs. You can replace plastic water bottles with stainless steel or glass reusable bottles. It will help in reducing your plastic waste.

Make recycling a daily routine in your company environment. If your company produces a lot of metal waste, you might want to partner with a metal recycling center. Recycling leads to money saving, and elimination of waste sent to landfills. In a recent report, data showed that ‘The average American produces 1,704 pounds of garbage per year. From this waste, only 16 percent is recycled, while 46 percent is thrown away in ways that harm the environment.’

Now according to the number of employees in your company, you can calculate the estimate of waste produced regularly. Most of the waste includes papers, water bottles, cardboards, etc. Recycling and composting all this waste will reduce the need of mining, quarrying and logging, decrease emissions of carbon dioxide of your business, and redirect energy to other essential operations.

In addition, you might also want to consider data center recycling for certified data destruction.

Green Procurement

Another way by which you can make your business eco-friendly is to practice green procurement. It means that you can use the goods produced in a sustainable manner.

Purchase the material which is reusable or recyclable and avoid products that are harmful to the environment or are ozone-depleting. Do not use excess packaging if it is not necessary.

Revise the procurement policy of your business to ensure that it is helping in making your business environmentally friendly.

Keep a check on energy consumption

Businesses use a lot of energy for their work. This energy consumption increases the carbon footprint of the company. You can replace your regular lights in office and parking lots with commercial solar street lighting that is cost effective to save the environment. Solar LED lights use a renewable source of energy, which is why they are less expensive and also help the business to save thousands of dollars paid on the electricity bill. You can also save a decent amount of dollars by choosing the right energy plan for your home such as the ones offered by Reliant Energy plans which can directly help you to cut bill surprises.

Shifting to renewable sources of energy will not only help your business to be more eco-friendly but will also reduce your operating expenses.

In order to ensure that you are making the most out of your green energy, you need to have an effective energy storage system. You need to understand that green energies like solar need to be stored in potential energy form in such systems. When there is a requirement for the same, the energy storage system converts potential energy to kinetic energy and supplies it to the house or appliance, whatever the case may be. For more on energy storage solutions, click here.

Switch to cloud computing

Using digital methods of sharing and documenting data such as cloud computing is a great idea. You can easily access your business data from anywhere around the world. It will help in reducing the paper waste and carbon emission of your company.

Moreover, it will also help you to keep a check on your expenses and to eliminate time wastage to find information.

Make an Incentive program

The business works with its employees. It is not possible to make changes in the organization without the consent of employees. To motivate your employees for the way they use to work, you can introduce an incentive program. Incentives can be anything a vacation abroad, a few percent increase in pay, a voucher for online shopping, etc.

These extra benefits will encourage the employees to always keep a check on the waste they produce daily. Besides, keeping a regular track of waste produced will turn into a good habit which will help in saving the environment.

Organizing events

Caring for our environment and making efforts to save it is a social responsibility of every business. By taking steps to be more eco-friendly, you can inspire others as well.

Organizing events with government authorities and NGOs will help in encouraging other people. Moreover, it will also enhance the brand visibility and goodwill in the market.

Considering the changing environment scenario, it is very important that you take every step possible to make your business environment friendly. These small efforts will turn into a big change and will also benefit your company.