Top 10 Simple and Essential Ways to be Green for the Small Business

These days you can’t pass the corridor without hearing about green products, green efforts, green ideas, etc. It’s neither a fad nor a foe. Being environmentally conscious is a way of life now. In order to continue and further improve this green mindset, it needs to spread like the number of hits on You Tube of kittens. Being green in your workplace is simple, but does require a team effort to keep it alive and churning. Below is a list of easy yet significant ways you can reduce your carbon footprint at the office. Every small business should be able to take on these small tasks to contribute to the health of our environment.

Inside the office

1). Start a recycling program and put the funds to good use. Keep bins for paper, plastic, and aluminum around the office to make is easy to sort. If you’re inclined to bring in your recyclables to the local plant, use the funds you earn to treat your employees to a free monthly company lunch. And don’t forget about e-waste. If you have computers or other office equipment that is well past its prime, recycle them too. Collect and bring them to specialized recycling centers like Cal Micro Recycling that safely break down these machines into recyclable elements, keeping heavy metals and plastics out of our landfills and water system.

2). Save paper. Print less, print double sided, or digitize all your documents. Consider GreenPrint, a software company that “eliminate[s] pages, images and selected content from print jobs before they are sent to the printer.” This will save you big on office supply costs and save you time since purchase of office supplies will be more infrequent.

3). Save electricity. Buy motion sensors for hallway and office lights. Run a schedule in the computer control panel to automatically shut down computers at night. Use the compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), rather than the incandescent light bulbs and look for Energy Star certified equipment. This will save you lots of money in the end. All these efforts will be a tremendous help to reducing excess costs and excess carbon emissions.

4). Monitor your usage. Use green monitoring software like Verdiem (Edison company), CO2 Saver, Carbon Control Software, which all specialize in reducing energy consumption while the computers are idle. They provide you info of how much carbon you have saved, and Verdiem even gives you an estimate of your savings.

5). Tap your tap. Aren’t you tired of seeing those half empty bottles of water lying around everywhere in the office or worse yet, your car? Provide filtered water for employees and customers. Reducing the use of plastic = reducing the use of fossil fuels.

6). Don’t provide paper cups at work. Worse yet, don’t even think about providing the styrofoam ones. Those things will outlive humanity in the landfills. Provide a compartment in your kitchen cabinet dedicated to employee cups and mugs. Promote it by having a special coffee or tea and bagel company breakfast. If you’re really feeling creative, get some plain or color mugs and have a decorate-your-own-cup party.

7). Stay educated on green current events. The best way to do this is by following opinion leaders on Twitter like @thegoodhuman, @treehugger, @care2.

Outside the office

8). Encourage employees to carpool. Also, if they live nearby, encourage them to walk or bike to work (you’ll need to provide a bike rack unless you want to be sitting next to one of these things in the office). This will reduce carbon emissions and pollution, as well as traffic (especially in LA). Public transportation is another excellent choice and in this case making a monthly fixed contribution will be a great way to show your support to your employees.

9). Do more company activities outside. Hold meetings, company lunches, half hour strolls or runs even. This improves employee morale as well as reduces energy usage in the office.

10). Organize a monthly company volunteer activity at various environmental charities in your community. For instance, Cal-Micro, offers e-waste recycling programs as fundraiser events for non-profits so your outdated office equipment can support a group in your local community. This will improve employee morale and get employees thinking about sustainability.