Earth Day is April 22! Do you have anything planned? It is a great time for employee engagement and there are many activities that can be organized such as a volunteer day for picking up trash in the community, scheduling learning sessions on environmentally friendly practices like composting, holding a company-wide donation or fundraising event, or maybe even holding a contest or game about recycling.
Long term though, it is also a good time to look at your company’s environmental impact and think of ways to minimize that impact. This will not only help the environment but will also increase employee morale and reduce company costs!
Where can you start?
A good starting point is to look at your current practices and to start small. Here are some ideas to get you started, that we’ve implemented at Safety Partners.
- Engage your employees
Talk to employees and co-workers. They may already have lots of great ideas that they have been wanting to implement. A green team can be formed to help come up with and implement the company’s environmental initiatives.
- Reduce, reuse and recycle
The kitchen/café areas and copy rooms are great places to start your focus. Can kitchen/café disposables be replaced with reusable options? Is recycling easily available and does everyone know what items can be recycled? Is composting available? Can you go paperless or reduce paper usage? Even laboratories can recycle uncontaminated items like pipette tip boxes.
- Conserve water
Check faucets and repair any leaks. Consider reducing the flow or installing aerated faucets.
- Reduce energy usage
Change lights to low-energy LED bulbs and install sensors to automatically turn lights on and off. Turn off office equipment such as computers and monitors at the end of the day. Make sure equipment is energy efficient.
- Check how you are ordering supplies
Can you group shipments to reduce emissions and packaging waste? Are you ordering recycled products when you can? Did you choose the option for more environmentally friendly packaging?
- Support local vendors
By purchasing products closer to you, you are reducing shipping emissions as well as supporting local businesses!
More resources:
If you need more information or help getting started, please contact [email protected].
This blog was written by Dana Zafiropoulos, one of our QRT Specialists.