Companies are increasingly realizing that good environmental stewardship makes business sense.
According to the annual Global 100 list for 2017, UK companies are holding their own on the among the world’s most sustainable corporations. The list reveals that the nations with the largest share of Global 100 firms are the U.S. (19), France (12), and the UK (11).
Here at Protect the Planet, we have eco-friendly gifts — which allow companies to be eco-friendly in their giving — and green office supplies — which allow businesses to provide workers with necessary materials that won’t have a detrimental impact on the environment.
But there are other ways that companies can do their part to reduce their carbon footprints while also saving money. What follows is a look at some practical ways that corporations can go green and save.
Reduce Paper Product Purchases
A YouGov survey in the UK shows that small-to-medium enterprises waste more than GBP 42.2 million daily on locating and retrieving data. The tally for businesses that are less dependent on paper is substantially lower, however. Using cloud-based options is one way that businesses can reduce their paper product purchases. And going paperless can also help firms to keep their data more safe and secure than could ever be the case with paper-based documents.
DIY Toilet Booster
Installing modern toilets can help to reduce the amount of water used per flush, but there’s a cheaper and simpler way if businesses don’t want to shoulder the expense of changing all of their toilets. In fact, do-it-yourself toilet float boosters, which are small floating water reservoirs that displace water from the toilet tanks, will ensure that less water is used every time employees flush. Making float boosters is simple. For each float booster, what’s needed is a two-liter soda bottle. Fill 25% of the bottle with sand, and fill the remainder of the bottle with water. After this is done, the float booster needs to be placed inside of the toilet tank. This will save as much as a gallen per flush. Toilets can use as many as seven gallons every flush, so reducing that amount by even a gallon will make a big difference.
Water Dispensing System
A lot of businesses provide bottled water for their employees. While this can be convenient, it isn’t particularly eco-friendly. The reason is that many of the people who use disposable water bottles don’t bother to put them into a recycling bin, and this can contribute to the problem of landfills being overcrowded with empty water bottles. Businesses can, instead, install an office water dispenser. This will save money, cut down on waste, and benefit the environment.
Reduce Utility Bills
Consider that lighting accounts of two-fifths of the energy usage in the UK, so it makes up a tangible amount of energy bills. How can businesses go green and save money? The answer is LED lights. They use under 80% of the electricity that traditional incandescent bulbs do. Also consider that some LED bulbs can last 70,000 hours, which is up to 10 times more than traditional bulbs. So, businesses that switch their incandescent bulbs for LED bulbs can save.
Businesses are more and more looking at environmental stewardship as a corporate responsibility. Fortunately, there are relatively simple things they can do to save not only the environment, but also some money.
