In this day and age, sustainability and the environment are at the forefront of many people’s minds and rightly so! The environment is crucially important to the world we live in.
But how exactly does all of this apply to businesses? A huge number of businesses are seeking innovative ways to actively lower their carbon emissions in keeping with customer and employee demands. Lots of people are now becoming ever-increasingly conscious of environmental factors and wanting better and more sustainable ways of doing things. Companies that don’t evolve to these practices are sure to fall behind. Regardless of the size of your business, ensuring that you are mindful of environmental factors – is key.
With this in mind, we’re going to explain how your business can increase its energy efficiency by lowering its carbon emissions.
What exactly is your carbon footprint?
Your carbon footprint refers to the impact you have on the environment. For example, it can be indicative of the overall environmental impact that various activities have on our surroundings. ‘Carbon footprint’ also refers to the level of carbon dioxide let into the atmosphere by carrying out various activities.
A prime example of this could be the number of water filters used as well as consumed at your company. This would include the greenhouse gas emissions produced from sourcing of the water, the manufacturing of the bottle, the transportation, as well as all the activities performed in the water company that are necessary for that bottle to be made and transported to you.
Why is it worthwhile lowering your carbon footprint?
Lowering a business’s carbon footprint indicates that you will make fewer carbon emissions, which in turn means that you will slow down the impact of climate change on the environment thus preserving it, and making better use of our resources.
By simply taking a bit of time to analyze your company’s role in impacting the environment and ways you can lower your carbon footprint – is a worthy thing. As a company, you’ve got control in implementing and enforcing greener practices at work, as well as ensuring compliance with legislation relating to your environment.
Taking this into account, we are going to talk about a few ways that you can lower your carbon footprint – at work.
Review your workplace lighting
This might sound obvious, however, altering your workplace lighting to more energy-efficient solutions can be a really smart move, financially and environmentally. Using more energy-efficient options such as LEDs can make a huge difference! Where you can, ensure that if natural lighting is appropriate – then utilise it.
Lots of workplaces are artificially lit and they don’t always need to be. Natural lighting saves energy and has been found to improve sleep and avoid health risks associated with unnatural lighting, for example, increased stress levels.
Solar lighting is also an excellent solution and can be used to help, by minimising glare and increased heat. There is also a wide range of technology out there, for example, motion sensors – these too can be used to make sure lights are off in rooms where they are not in use or not needed. Dimmable lights are another useful type of lighting to ensure lights aren’t at their brightest when not needed. This should also help reduce electricity costs.
Optimise your heating
Ensuring that you have temperature controls on your heating accurately measured and is effective in minimising overheating or getting too cold at work. As well as this, making sure that the temperature is minimal during the night is important. Lots of energy can be wasted if heating and cooling systems are working and this added cost can be narrowly avoided.
It’s definitely worth making sure that your employees are aware of heating and cooling to prevent dramatic swings in temperature and generally just ensure that they are aware of it. Making sure people have the knowledge of how to manually adjust your thermostat is incredibly useful (for them)
but lots of companies do tend to opt for a centrally controlled thermostat for the purpose of efficiency as well as energy efficiency.
Be sure your boiler is frequently serviced as well to make sure that it is operating safely and efficiently. As well as this, regularly make sure that your heating and cooling appliances are cleaned. You could think about installing window film too! This stuff works by allowing light in but reflects the heat back out throughout the warmer months. This allows you to have both natural light without causing an increased demand for air conditioning. This film can be reversed in winter so that heat is reflected in your workspace.
Recycling
Of course, this point was going to pop up! Most businesses have made a concerted effort to really make time for recycling and this is a fantastic thing. Making employees aware of sustainable practices is key and it’s worth engaging employees with thinking of ways they can reduce workplace consumption levels relating to basic items such as water, paper, food and drink, laptops, phones and packaging. The creation and transport of all these items have an associated carbon footprint.
Even something as simple as purchasing recycled paper or going paperless is an excellent way to lower your businesses carbon footprint. Just purchasing recycled paper makes a huge difference to the environment. If your business has a substantial supply chain, then it is very important to make sure that sustainability is coherently communicated throughout the business.
Get rid of single-use plastic
Something as simple as reducing all single-use plastic items you’re your business model is a wonderful idea. Be mindful of biodegradable or compostable materials as lots of them simply cannot be combined with food waste. There are so many alternatives to single-use plastic and this is something that you can easily implement into your business – whatever the nature of it is.
Go paperless – (if you can)
Whatever kind of business you run, no doubt ample supplies of paper are used fairly often. Taking simple active measures to bring this amount down should be relatively straightforward. Take action to lower the amount of paper usage, particularly by lowering printing and taking some steps to digitise.
This is the direction lots of businesses are going in and it’s easy to see why! It’s so simple. Here are a few examples:
- Signing contracts online
- Be mindful about printing – only do so if necessary
- Do any presentations or annotating on-screen instead.
If your business needs to use printing services, make sure double-sided printing is set as your default. Again, something as simple as this can not only save you money but also make a big change to the world we live in.
Mitchell’s – We Can Help Your Company Reduce Its Carbon Footprint
Today’s consumers are understandably concerned with how their purchasing habits will ultimately impact the environment. With that in mind, it’s more important than ever for local commercial enterprises to do what they can to rein in emissions and reduce their carbon footprint. Installing new and more efficient heating equipment can help achieve this.
Mitchell’s is currently involved in installing air-source heat pumps in Gloucester, which can help to reduce power consumption and keep a building operating in greener territory. We have our finger on the pulse in terms of the latest breakthroughs in heating systems. With our help, your heating system can operate more efficiently and with better energy marks for a brighter, greener future.
To call one of our heating engineers out to your location, just contact us or get in touch with us through our contact form to set up an appointment.