5 Eco-friendly Ways to Make Your Workplace More Productive

Since a lot of us spend most of our waking hours at work, the office may be the best place to practice sustainability. It is quite hard to do this on our own but with the help of our colleagues, every step will become easier because we know that we are not alone.

Let's start shifting to a more eco-friendly working environment with these simple and easy tips:

1.  Use as little as you can get away with when you need to print a document

The number one rule is print not at all, and when you must, print once. Double sided, multiple pages on one sheet, or going to a cloud based solution can reduce the number of physical copied that need to be made. This will lower your paper consumption and you're definitely saving trees, ink, and water. 

2. Invest in indoor plants

Indoor plants not only serve as an office decoration but they also filter out air pollutants. They also help reduce stress, increase productivity and boost creativity. So, brighten things up with a desk plant as it will also give them a responsibility to take care of their plants.

3. Build a sustainability team

Pick a representative from each department to form a sustainability team. These people will be responsible for promoting and maintaining sustainability in the office by brainstorming projects and programs that will encourage the employees to go greener in the office.

4. Use natural light as much as possible

Utilizing natural light than indoor light will save more energy and reduce your utility bill. And just like indoor plants, natural light promotes work productivity. So, refrain using indoor light especially if the natural light is available.

5. Calculate your company or department's eco footprint, and halve it

Once of the most important things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is to actually calculate it. There are many useful carbon footprint calculators out there that can give you an estimate on how much carbon you're responsible for emitting in to the atmosphere. The act of filling out the calculator and being forced to recall how much time you spend in the car or how much aircon you use calls attention to each individual and company's consumption patterns and habits. You'll definitely see room for improvement as you fill out the calculator. Then once you have a number of tonnes, commit to reducing your footprint by half within a time span. Let's be ambitious and try to get that reduced to 1 year.