Developing Your Company's Green Policy

The intensity around the climate change debate seems to have increased in recent times. Everyone is talking about it. From politicians to celebrities, climate activists to businesses. Climate change is a hotbed of tension with arguments about who should take responsibility at the centre. Wherever you stand on the situation, one thing is clear, we all need to be doing out bit to reduce the damage that the human race has inflicted on this planet. 

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Where Does The Blame Lie?

Governments need to be legislating on these matters. Applying levies and taxes appears to be a popular way of tackling the problem. However, the problem with prohibitive taxes is that there are always plenty of people who will be willing to pay them so that they don’t need to make a change to their world. 

Big business should certainly be standing up and owning up to the fact that over the last few decades, in particular, it has sought to increase market share, by encouraging consumer spending and waste. Driving down manufacturing costs has meant finding less environmentally sustainable practices to deliver greater profits. 

All of this has to stop, and governments, businesses, and individuals need to review the way that they do everything and start to make some changes.

Look For Ways To Conserve Water

The world is in the grips of a water shortage. That may seem like an absurd statement to you. However, although seventy per cent of the earth is made up of water, barely a fraction of that is safe to drink. And we seem to be going through the water as if it will last forever. Recently, the entire country of South Africa nearly had to cut off their whole water supply forever. Fortunately, drastic measures saved it from happening right at the last minute. But it is estimated by climate experts that over a quarter of the population of the world will not have access to clean drinking water anymore within the next decade. 

This problem is not just something that may affect third world counties. This has a knock-on to all of us. There are many ways that you can reduce the water use in your business and in turn, do your bit to minimize the effects of the situation. 

Having an industrial water tank installed on your premises to collect rainwater from your roofs will mean that you have water to flush your toilets. If you have urinals in your restrooms, you could get waterless ones. 

Change The Way That You Deal With Energy

One major source of pollution is the energy industry. Power stations that burn coal are still the primary source of electricity for many. However, there has been a significant rise on smaller companies that offer entirely renewable energy. If your business is not already with a green energy supplier, you should look at switching to one straight away. 

You could also look at fitting solar panels or wind turbines to the exterior of the premises so that you can produce your own energy, In the long term, this may be a positive investment, and many businesses are choosing to take their own power solutions into their own hands. 

Encourage your staff to switch off the lights when they are not in a room. If there are non-essential electrical items left on, make sure that they are turned off when they are not in use. 

Encourage Your Team To Review Their Transportation 

The way that your team gets to work should be of major concern to you. If they are all driving in, then this will have a negative impact on the environment. As a business, you should be encouraging your team to make environmentally conscious decisions about how they get to work. 

One thing that you could do to help staff to do this is to start a carpool club that allows your team to share lifts with each other and cut down the number of vehicles driving in and out each day. 

Think about starting up a cycle to work scheme. This will mean providing your staff with access to bicycles, either through subsidized ownership or by renting out the bikes. You will also need to provide adequate secure bike racks to allow your staff to lock up their bikes while they are in work. 

Go Paperless

Our trees are the lungs of the planet. They convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and they help to make the world a cleaner place. However, we have chopped down trees with such fervour, we have cause problems for ourselves. One way that your business can help reduce the number of trees that are getting chopped down is by going paperless. In these days of digital information, there are lots of ways of replacing paper. 

You can keep all of your invoices digitally and have them stored. If you are a company that needs to write to customers; email or text them instead. There are ways of communicating that don’t involve paper, and many people don’t even open their mail these days. 

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

A significant threat to the environment is through waste. Have a look at your business and see how much waste you are throwing away. You will probably find that it is more than you would have imagined. Often, the staff will throw away items that can be recycled. This means that your business will be sending recyclable items to the landfill. 

Implementing recycling training within your workplace will help your team to understand what they can send to recycling, and what needs to be disposed of another way. 

Create An Environmental Policy

Your company needs to invest time and effort into managing its own environmental policy. It should be fully considered and specific to your workplace. It needs to cover how the staff will be trained and briefed about matters. Once you have created the policy, you should ensure you stay close to it and work towards the standards set out. Once it is in place, you should review it periodically.