Sustainability is the name of the game these days and moving your business model in this direction isn’t just good for the planet. It can also be good for your bottom line. Sustainable solutions often cost less, but more importantly. Customers are increasingly demanding that companies become more eco-friendly. The tips below can help your business start to make this shift.
1. Consider a Remote Workforce
Depending on the nature of your business, if remote work is possible, it could be more eco-friendly. However, it is important to look at all factors and make sure this is actually the case. One of the big benefits of remote work in terms of sustainability and its impacts is that it cuts out commute time. It also can reduce your office footprint, but only if not having staff in will really result in that.
If you have to keep your offices open and heated or cooled anyway, it might not balance out if your employees have to use energy in their homes as well. This may be particularly true if you have employees who mostly commute by public transportation, cycling or walking. If you have employees who could more easily use trains, buses, bikes, feet or even carpooling if you put in a flexible schedule, that might be a better solution in some cases. You might also consider subsidizing public transportation costs.
2. Have the Right Tools
A lot of energy can be wasted if you don’t have the right equipment for the job you need to do. Look for eco-friendly equipment that can help you use exactly as much as you need and no more. If part of your business involves fleet operations and you have refrigerated assets, reefer monitoring solutions can be cost-effective as well as ensuring compliance since they can help in maintaining a steady temperature when needed the most.
3. Choose Substance Over Style
While customer demand may be one thing that drives your pivot to a more sustainable approach to business, seek real solutions to environmental problems and not what is trendy or what looks good. For example, you don’t want to purchase products for your office that market themselves as sustainable but use excess packaging or ingredients that are toxic. Try to avoid getting caught up in hype, and look for long-term solutions.
4. The Perfect and the Good
There is a wise saying that you shouldn’t “let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” What this means is that you should avoid taking an all-or-nothing approach to becoming more eco-friendly. You may need to keep this in mind in particular if you are facing demands from employees or consumers.
There may be costs and benefits to weigh that mean that you can’t implement certain solutions or that it may take time to implement them. There may be less-sustainable practices that you simply cannot improve. However, you can still look for other ways to go greener. This can include small shifts, such as changing over to more multi-use products where you can and reducing your use of paper and similar products.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
