Business owners are always looking to reduce waste. When coupled with a green initiative, employees are much more willing to be a part of the solution. Here are some simple steps to save some money.
Going green is not just the latest trend. Smart business owners have always looked to improve efficiencies and reduce waste. It improves your public image and make the CFO happy at the same time. Is it enough to recycle office paper? How much should we encourage car pooling? The key is to start small and build on those success to move on to bigger initiatives.
Here are five simple tips to help start you on the right path.
Create a Meaningful Paperless Plan.
The average U.S. office worker goes through 10,000 sheets of copy paper a year. Company principals should pay more than lip service toward creating a paperless environment, and even consider giving up their printers. Every time an employee prints a document, they should ask themselves if it could be delivered electronically. If the answer is yes, don't push the print button. Post business documents to a server, and distribute press packets via email and Twitter. There is almost always an electronic alternative.
Leverage scanning technology.
Maintaining paper copies of archived business documents is costly to the business and the environment. Companies of all sizes should scan their old documents or hire a
document scanning service. Once in an electronic format, documents are easier to find, distribute, and secure using an electronic document management system (EMS). There are also savings on the climate controlled storage. It takes a great deal of energy to maintain the temperature and humidity in a storage center to prevent the decay of documents. It is much cheaper to simply maintain a server and backing it to a remote location is trivial to set up.
Offer Green Parking Spaces.
Encourage your employees to use green options on their commute. Parking spaces are designated for employees with fuel-efficient cars, hybrids, or carpools. While this doesn't have a direct impact on the bottom line it shows the company's commitment to be more green to employees as well as the community.
Install light sensors in the bathrooms and hallways.
Motion-detecting sensors turn lights on only when needed. Also, if your business replaces incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent (CFL), it will reduce your electric bill. The energy used for lighting constitutes approximately 40% of an offices electric bill.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
Since it is impossible to be completely paperless, make it easy for your employees to recycle everything your company collects. All office paper (including fax paper, envelopes, and junk mail) can be recycled. An easy way to get two jobs done at once is with a paper
shredding service. They not only recycle the paper they shred but it cost less than using your employees to do the shredding.
