Top 5 Green Tips for Office Supplies
Creating ‘green’ office spaces is becoming an increasingly popular trend, especially among industry-leading SEO and other digital companies. Doing so will help you reduce your business’s environmental footprint, saving the planet and ensuring a healthy climate for future generations.
You will also find that many potential clients will prefer to work with a company that’s committed to eco-friendly operations. Because of this, I’ve put together the following list of my top five tips to implement more eco-friendly office supply policies. Remember, it never hurts to do your own research and identify actions specific to your business.
- Reduce Printing Waste
One of the easiest ways to reduce your environmental footprint and make your office more eco-friendly is to simply reduce the amount of office supplies you use. And one of the best ways to do this is to reduce printing waste.
Rather than printing hard copies of everything, sit back and think carefully about whether you actually need to print a document before doing so. In many cases, you will find that a digital copy serves just fine.
- Go for Reusable Where Possible
Meanwhile, it’s also a great idea to go for reusable office stationery if you can. The classic example here is pens. Rather than purchasing cheap, disposable ballpoint pens, consider giving each employee their own refillable model. You could even engrave their names on each one to add a nice personal touch.
- Appoint a Stationary Manager
One of the biggest causes of stationary waste is people having unmonitored access to the stationary cabinet. Although it might seem like this is making things easier the chances are that it will be costing you money – not to mention the environmental impact of people taking things that they just don’t need.
Rather than doing this, think about appointing an office manager to hand out stationary when it’s needed. You might be surprised at the results.
- Use Recycled Paper Where Possible
If you do have to use paper, I’d recommend trying to get your hands on a recycled option. Obviously, you should still try to reduce printing and paper waste as much as you can, but using a recycled alternative is a great way to reduce your direct impact on deforestation and climate change.
- Go Digital
When you take steps to move your office online, you will suddenly find that you’re using significantly less stationary and other physical consumables. For example, encourage people to take notes on their phones or tablets, rather than physically writing things in a notebook or on a piece of paper. Yes, this might be inconvenient initially, but you’ll soon get used to it – trust me!
Summary:
At the end of the day, you might be surprised by just how many changes you can implement to make your office greener. Start with your stationery cabinet, eliminate single-use and disposable items, and think carefully about moving towards digital operations if applicable. In reality, most modern businesses can successfully operate on a predominately digital basis.