7 Ways to Build a Sustainable Workplace
The corporate world is a major aspect of each one of our lives. People spend more time at work than they do with their family or friends. As the pressure to compete increases, the need to create a sustainable workplace grows even more. A sustainable environment is important to make a long stressful workday more relaxed and productive.
Corporate organizations have the biggest role in this regard. Eco-sustainability has become one of the biggest concerns of the corporate world today. Be it industrial or technological, every company is a contributor to global warming and pollution. However, these companies also have the capabilities that allow for designing a workplace that contributes to environmental sustainability. These capabilities include incentives and opportunities that can reverse the damage caused to the ecosystems.
There are various ways companies can create a more sustainable work environment for example using renewable sources of energy and use such initiatives that sustain the environment. In this article, we are going to discuss a few tips necessary to create a sustainable workplace environment.
So let’s dig in.
What is a sustainable workplace?
Sustainability is not just important to conserve the environment. It is a great way to bring together your employees to create an ideal work culture. A sustainable culture promotes productivity and work-life balance. Workplace sustainability has a positive impact not only on the environment but also on the customers and employees.
Creating a sustainable workplace is important to create happier employees. Satisfied employees are important for a business’s success. An eco-friendly workplace boosts productivity, creates a less stressful atmosphere, and reduces illness-related leaves.
Creating a sustainable work environment requires ground-level planning. First of all, you need to assure that everyone working in your organization understands and truly believes in eco-friendly values and practices.
The benefits of eco-sustainability go beyond the environment. It is also a great way to better manage the cost of running a business, improve employee health and grab the attention of the eco-aware customers. Most customers choose eco-friendly brands over the rest.
How do you create a sustainable workplace?
Following are some of the best way to make your workplace even more sustainable:
- Promote recycling:
Recycling is the first and the most obvious step of creating a sustainable workplace. You can promote recycling in your workspace by launching an office recycling program. You can kick start this program by installing recycling bins all-around your workspace including cabins, kitchens, and common rooms.
You can encourage more people to recycle by posting recycling reminders with the commercial recycling bins. Make sure every employee is aware of the recycling program. You can send reminder emails each week to keep everyone on track. Create a set of recycling policies everyone on board has to follow.
Another eco-friendly solution you can implement in the workplace is to sell used electronics, like computers, laptops, or old phones lying around the office. Your company can earn some extra money while freeing up storage space. This also gives unused IT equipment a second life, keeping them away from landfills for several years.
Try selling your items via PCLiquidations.com, a reliable US-based distributor of refurbished IT equipment that has been around since 1991. The entire process is fast and convenient. Simply send them your list of items, and they will provide you with a competitive bid. They will even shoulder the shipping!
Payment is then processed after the items have been received and evaluated. You can also rest assured of your privacy, as the company wipes out data on your devices before refurbishing and selling them.
- Reduce the consumption of electricity:
Saving electricity does much more than helping with your bills. It is also one of the best ways to conserve the environment. In most workplaces, machinery and lights are unnecessarily used. This adds to the growing pollution as well as your electricity bills. It causes sustainability to diminish.
You can promote electricity conservation in your workplace by introducing eco-friendly practices including energy management campaigns. You can also place stickers around the power supply or switchboards to encourage employees to turn off the light when not used.
You can go a step further and install automatic lights with motion sensors to conserve electricity in the workspace. You can also arrange regular cleanups for the dirty machinery that cause more energy consumption.
- Ask employees to bike or ride to the office:
There are various benefits of asking your employees to walk or bike to work. It not only promotes eco-sustainability but also keeps them in good shape. It is also financially sound.
You can encourage more employees to ride bikes or walk to work by offering them incentives at the end of the month in the form of recognition, prizes, or cash bonuses. You can launch a wellness program where the eco-friendly efforts of the employees are acknowledged and rewarded.
- Paperless documentation:
Most eco-aware companies are planning or on their way to becoming completely paperless. However, cutting out paper is not as easy as it seems. If your organization is one of them, you need to introduce systems for paper recycling.
Print the paper on both sides. If you print out important documents on paper, you should get in touch with a shredding company that recycles paper after destroying important information.
- Make your workplace greener:
Brighten up the interior of your office with indoor plants. According to research, adding living plants to the workplace makes employees happier and more active. It increases productivity to up to 15% and improves memory.
Plants also actively produce oxygen, reducing air pollution. They make the indoor atmosphere more breathable and cleaner. Evenly install potted plants around your office to provide everyone with the benefits of a clean and green environment.
- Carefully choose your suppliers:
Various supply chains constitute a business. To create a more eco-sustainable workplace environment, you need to audit all of your suppliers for the environmental impact. If you want to curb pollution, you should buy repurposed or preloved office essentials including computers, printers, and coffee makers.
For instance, if you want to add a new printer to your office make sure that it will satisfy your needs and will not take up a huge place. Despite the fact that today we are trying to make all documents digital, sometimes we need to have some of them on paper. For being more eco-friendly and sustainable it is a great option to have a multifunctional office printer, which will replace not only the printer but also the copier, scanner and fax machine. However, if you want to become a successful advertising company you can take a look at large format printers and find the best fit for your business. This will let you print large boards and you can offer your customers high-quality billboards.
Sustainability should be your priority when it comes to choosing vendors and suppliers. Choose those electricity suppliers who produce it from renewable resources. Choose the cafeteria food-service that packs food items in compostable packing and provides more vegetarian options. You may also buy a vending machine with healthy food items for much easier access to food.
- Use as much natural light as you can:
While choosing a place to build your office, choose a space illuminated with natural light. This will reduce your electricity consumption. If that’s not possible, try to use light colors in your workspace and place mirrors around the space to enhance the light you get.
Using natural light as much as possible has a variety of health benefits. It keeps your employees healthy and maintains a fresh atmosphere most of the day.
Wrapping up!
If you are committed to conserving the environment, you should adopt eco-friendly habits. Since an organization is composed of various individuals, it is ideal to encourage your workers to opt for eco-friendly practices. You can launch wellness programs and initiatives to make that happen. Send regular reminders to keep the entire team on track with eco-friendly practices.
Digital Solutions That Could Help Ease Climate Change
Rising temperatures, declining water supplies, poorer agricultural yields, melting glaciers and warming oceans are just a few obvious effects of global climate change on the environment. We hear environmentalists preaching about climate change for a long time, some are moved by the facts while others see it as an agenda. The bottom line is, we're all impacted by the negative effects of climate change.
Our basic needs such as food, water and energy will be impacted as these symptoms extend beyond the increase in temperature.
Climate change can't be stopped by an individual or a group of people. It's a collective effort that the whole world needs to take part in. Before the melting glaciers and warming oceans completely decimate our fish supplies, before worse comes to worst, we should all put our foot on the pedal and do what we can today, to help eliminate climate change.
In this article, we're going to talk about digital solutions that could help ease climate change. Being aware of these things will help all of us know what we can do and what other solutions are available in the future.
Fusion Energy
When fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas are burned, they release a huge amount of carbon dioxide. This is a greenhouse gas that traps heat within our atmosphere that causes global warming. Since 1970, carbon dioxide emissions have catapulted by 90 percent. Not only this but nuclear power plants, a huge contributor to climate change, generate unstable nuclei -- some can be radioactive for millions of years.
Clean energy like fusion energy has been found to be a viable solution to this problem. In the 1920s, British physicist Arthur Eddington proposed that the fusion of hydrogen into helium powered the sun and stars. This idea had researchers and scientists working and researching on the possibility of bringing this energy source to our planet. If successful, fusing atoms can release nearly four million times more energy than what we get from burning oil, gas, and coal, that's 400% more than nuclear fission reactions -- minus the nuclear waste and other radioactive elements.
Fusion is difficult to achieve, however, there have been advancements in science and promising studies that are shining light on making this idea a possibility. By 2050, it's estimated that fusion power may become usable.
Reduce Transport
Studies show that 23 percent of CO2 emissions related to global energy are produced by transportation vehicles. However, people need transportation in their everyday lives, and we can only expect this to increase.
There are two ways to combat this as we are now. The pandemic has proven that remote work can be a viable option for non-client-facing jobs. Giving billions of people around the world the option to work from home will allow less energy wasted on transportation. Similarly, digitization has also improved so much that we can now order groceries online. Instead of driving to the supermarket, you can just have it delivered to your doorstep.
Another way is to use electric vehicles. Tesla has proven that electric vehicles are as good and can be better than those running on petrol. The good thing is that researchers are continuing their study in improving the performance of electric vehicles. We can expect faster, safer and more effective battery charging technology.
Direct Air Capture (Carbon Removal)
Emissions of greenhouse gases, which are mostly caused by carbon dioxide, are the main culprit for climate change, and scientists have also thought of a straightforward solution: capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Direct air capture works by using mechanical systems to capture CO2 and compress it to be put into geological storage (deep within the sea or appropriate geological reservoirs) or utilize it to make products like cement.
Carbon removal could lead to high costs, which can amount to USD600 per ton of CO2. However, many companies are operating direct air capture facilities and are working on finding ways to make it more efficient.
Reduce Energy Consumption
The most effective technological or digital solution that we all can do every day is to reduce energy consumption.
Reducing electricity use in your home or switching to solar energy altogether, can help ease climate change and save lives. More and more houses are investing in solar panels today and many future homeowners are asking their professional real estate agents for property listings with a solar energy system, which is a good sign. This means that people are becoming aware of the problems that come from climate change, as well as the benefits of having reusable and sustainable energy.
It may sound inconsequential but collectively, this will make a huge difference. A small step like you doing an action first can lead to great leaps like your whole family doing it, then your relatives, followed by the entire community.
Power plants and industrial plants are the main contributors to climate change, however, cutting back on energy consumption, as well as buying fewer products that impact climate change and global warming will reduce the amount of electricity that these industries use. No change is too small in this case.
What's noteworthy is that the European Union has already begun establishing energy labelling projects that label how energy efficient an appliance is. This informs people about how much it will cost them to run an appliance like a refrigerator or things like light bulbs. This move might not be much but when done at scale, it can have a positive impact on energy consumption.
Take the First Step Toward a More Sustainable Future
No effort is too small when it comes to easing up climate change. Researchers and scientists are all working to fix this problem. However, we should also do our part. Right now, it's impossible for you to shut down power plants emitting greenhouse and toxic gases in the atmosphere, maybe in the future, but at the moment, we should do what we can.
Try to limit buying products that cause these power plants to use energy and try to use less electricity at home. If you can work from home, do so; this will not only save you gas but will also help reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emission.
The actions we take will not only help the planet but ourselves and future generations as well. We got this problem partly with technology. It would be reasonable to solve it with technology as well.
The 5 Most Important Benefits of Appropriate IT Asset Disposition
E-waste and the reckless disposal of IT properties is a global problem. Although we can't stop technology from progressing, we can certainly monitor how we dispose of our e-waste.
You can do it yourself (which is risky) or employ an IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) firm.
For a variety of purposes, we will recommend the latter. For one thing, your old and obsolete IT properties (such as used telecom equipment) were once used to store and transmit sensitive data. They could pose a security risk to the organization if not properly disposed of, i.e. with 100 percent data erasure (or the nation, if your information is that crucial).
As a result, effective ITAD is critical. Organizations are aware of this. The fact that the ITAD market is rising at such a rapid pace demonstrates this. According to Markets and Markets, what was once estimated at USD 10.12 billion in 2015 is now projected to hit USD 20.09 billion by 2022, with a CAGR of 9.83 percent over the forecast period.
ITAD is for a lot more than just data erasure. This article covers everything you need to know about IT Asset Disposition, including how to do it safely and responsibly.
A Comprehensive Asset Disposition Program's Key Elements
Let's start with the fundamentals of ITAD.
IT asset disposition (ITAD) is a company that focuses on safely and environmentally friendly disposal of outdated or unused equipment.
A well-thought-out asset disposal strategy follows four main steps:
- Transportation and logistics – The method of sorting out the old and surplus IT reserves based on their reusability, marking them, and shipping them to a location where they will be destroyed.
- Refurbishing – After the equipment has been sorted for usability, we will determine what can be reused and restored. Alternatively, it can be resold at market rates.
- The most important aspect is data destruction. Its aim is to ensure that all of your data is securely destroyed after verification. Certificates of data destruction are needed for auditing purposes.
- Recycling and Reporting – Recycling is the final step in the ITAD. If the equipment is classified as "not reusable," it will be recycled. The equipment will be 'operated' here in order to recover recycled components and elements. The remainder will be burned in a responsible manner.
To summarize, the ITAD company you hired manages our e-waste (for example, surplus or used phone equipment) by separating the useful (for reuse), transporting the waste (for data destruction) (confidential data that may pose a threat to your organization), and sending them off to their predetermined end (recycling/incineration). All of this is done while maintaining privacy, protection, and environmental enforcement, allowing you to get the most out of your IT properties.
Five Advantages of a Well-Managed ITAD Program
ITAD efficiency comes with a slew of advantages. The top five are listed below:
1. Inventory Control: E-waste is the term for electronic waste. Averted Crisis...
To run a company, we need IT gadgets (in some form or another). We require telephones, systems, plugs, and so on. And as we grow, so does technology. Telephones (landlines) are becoming redundant, and networks are being updated. There is a crisis.
We are not just averting (or making the most of) the impending (or current) crisis by implementing a standard and effective ITAD software (more on it later). We have a precise count of IT properties that have been properly labeled and disposed of.
2. Keeps Logistics Costs Under Control
Consider the prospect of having to dispose of your old IT equipment on your own. On top of the key workload, imagine the burden of collecting, arranging, marking, packaging, extracting, refurbishing, reselling, and R2 recycling. Consider losing, misplacing, or destroying once-valuable equipment. Consider this...
You will save time and money by hiring an ITAD company to dispose of your obsolete IT assets. There's also the issue of stress. Running a company is no laughing matter.
They'll handle everything, including logistics costs. And with reliable reporting, you'll really know what's going on with your prized possessions.
3. Provides complete data protection during disposal
The most significant benefit of ITAD is safe and validated data erasure. Data breaches may occur as a result of irresponsible data destruction of old equipment, causing harm to the company and its associates.
Before submitting your data for recycling, reusing, or reselling, ITAD guarantees that it is responsibly destroyed (even providing you with a certificate for verification).
4. Ensures that environmental, corporate, and compliance laws are followed.
Responsible asset disposal necessitates compliance with a variety of environmental, local/national, and corporate laws and regulations, as well as those specific to your sector. Failure to comply may result in public humiliation, a breach of confidence, and a slew of fines.
Guys, this is not a good idea.
Thankfully, every ITAD company ensures that all of your disposal is completed in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations.
5. Recovering the highest possible value
Nowadays, asset disposal is more than just a cost. It also refers to asset recovery, which refers to the money (or value) gained from reselling or refurbishing electronic waste. A well-designed ITAD program will help you get the most out of your used IT and telecom equipment both directly (through resale costs) and indirectly (through elements recovered during recycling) (by saving you from breaching compliance and the resultant penalty).
Overall, ITAD is vital to the success of your business. When the time comes, you should not overlook this choice.