5 Tips on Convincing your Workplace to be Greener
As promised, here is the companion article to Wednesday’s article. You’ve done all the things you can to make your workplace more environmentally friendly, but we at Rust and Fray believe that sustainability needs to be both a personal and a corporate responsibility. So what can your workplace do to become more eco friendly too? Here are our suggestions, all of which are easy changes to that any worker can suggest pretty easily that can have a very large effect on creating green spaces.
Get Rid of the Office Disposables
Everyone should switch away from disposables to reusables, and the company you work for is no exception. If your company provides coffee and water it is also perfectly capable of providing coffee mugs and cups as well. Recently WeWork, one of the fastest growing office space companies in the world (and Rust and Fray’s home base) switched away from disposable plastic cups to reusables, and we of course were thrilled. More companies need to follow suit.
Switch to Green Energy
We’ve mentioned this one before but it’s surprisingly easy to switch over to green energy. In certain parts of the US it literally just takes a phone call, because if you live in areas with energy markets set up, you can choose which power plants your electric companies are paying to keep electricity in the power grid. While we encourage all homes to take this on, if you run an office building and make the switch you can massively reduce your carbon footprint in one go, just like the Empire State Building did. And, CEOs, if you notice, that is a nice easy way to generate positive PR for basically the same cost for running any other electricity bill so, you know, go jump on that easy good publicity.
Turn Down that Thermostat
Again, this is one of those well known household tips whose effects are multiplied when it’s a large office building and not just another household. Setting your thermostat down when you’re not using the room is a surprisingly effective way to cut down on energy costs and to reduce your carbon footprint, so when managing a larger building this is a no brainer.
Incentivise Public Transportation
Instead of having people like me encouraging people to use public transportation, why not have companies incentivise it? One of the most basic management tips is that people respond well to incentives and benefits. When negotiating anything, keeping the negotiation entirely about numbers, even higher ones, is still just not a motivating psychologically as being offered specific things. Working in a green transportation bonus into a contract is an easily way to give employees an extra little “perk” to make work a little more enjoyable, while also doing something good at the same time.
Get a Green Audit.
Finally, a green audit can be an easy way to put your money where your mouth is, while also saving you money in the long run. Basically they are services that you can hire to make sure that your business is running its energy as efficiently as possible, and will give you change suggestions and a gameplan to make your business greener. The best part is that in the long run this will easily pay for itself in terms of savings, so it’s yet another way to make a little extra profit as you go green.
Hope you enjoyed these tips! If you liked out content, check out our Facebook, Instagram, or Journal page for more. Keep on being green!