If you’re ready to create a greener workplace, you’re probably well aware of the increasingly evident effects of global warming on today’s world. It’s ultimately up to us to make a difference, which means building greener workplaces and implementing office sustainability ideas. Every little bit helps when it comes to the planet!
Adopting environmentally friendly habits in the workplace can be tricky. Why? Well, office spaces tend to need (and use) a lot of supplies and energy. But you can still make little contributions throughout your day to help the environment in the long run.
This article explores some of our favorite ideas for how to build a greener workplace and emphasize sustainable business practices.
Want a Greener Workplace? Time to Improve Your Sustainability Strategy!
Building an eco-friendly organization starts with a well-planned sustainability strategy. Here are some tips that’ll help you create a strategy for improved sustainability in the workplace:
- Set Measurable Goals: Define clear goals that will help you build a greener workplace. For example, maybe you want to reduce energy use by 10% in 2025 or increase your recycling rate by 50% by 2030.
- Educate Employees: Get your team members involved with sustainability training sessions and offer ways they can help build a greener workplace together.
- Buy Green: Purchasing your office supplies and equipment from eco-conscious vendors supports other eco-friendly organizations, helping them continue helping the planet.
- Track Progress: Keep track of your sustainability efforts so you can celebrate milestones towards your measurable goals and keep motivation high!
Not sure how to introduce your new sustainability initiative? Consider kicking it off with a fun eco-friendly team building event. For example, the Ecopitch Challenge gets your teams involved with eco-friendly activities and challenges them to create solutions to real-world environmental issues.
Office Greening: 4 Simple Practices for a Greener Workplace
Making your office more environmentally friendly doesn’t have to be an overwhelming undertaking. There are plenty of simple practices that’ll create a greener workplace in a snap! Implementing even one of the options below will reduce your environmental impact and help the planet.
1. Start Recycling
This one is super easy to do. Put a bin next to the trash can marked “recycling,” and you already have a more sustainable workplace!
Here are some tips to get the most from this simple change:
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- Clear Instructions: It helps to put up a sign about what can and can’t be recycled—make it a short, easy-to-reference list for best results.
- Announce Your Goals: Make an office-wide announcement about the company’s recycling goals and ask that all employees participate.
- Create Fun Initiatives: Hosting educational events, promoting plastic-free Fridays, and other fun initiatives can help inspire people to get involved.
- Go the Extra Mile: Step up your efforts by organizing volunteering events to clean the office and outdoor areas.
- Make it a Game: Try creating friendly competitions if you have a couple of recycling bins around the office—who can fill theirs the fastest? Offer prizes like an ice cream party for the winners as an extra incentive!
2. Use Less Paper and Share Documents Online
Have you ever thought about how much paper you would save if you shared all of your documents online?
Whenever possible, try to eliminate printing by sharing documents with your co-workers online. We recommend using Google Drive, Docs, and Sheets—they make it easy to create files and share them with the entire office.
This practice also saves you from the dreaded clutter piling up on your desk. When you do have to print documents, opt to print double-sided to save paper.
3. Equip Office Kitchen With Plates, Cups, and Cutlery
Office kitchens can accumulate a ton of garbage. Combat this by buying some plates, cups, and cutlery for employees to use at lunchtime. It’ll cut back on the single-use trash that accumulates in the office kitchen.
As a bonus, you won’t have to remember to pack your disposable dishware every day (that’s not just us, right?). Bonus points if you organize healthy lunches as a new weekly team building activity to help your employees bond while positively affecting workplace sustainability.
4. Turn Off Lights and Electronics
Create new routines to ensure the lights in the office are shut off when you leave work each day. Don’t forget to shut off your computer or any other electronics you won’t need, too.
Don’t forget to unplug devices that aren’t being used—this saves a huge amount of electricity and improves the eco-friendliness of your workplace. Even when a device is just simply plugged in, it uses something called “phantom electricity,” which wastes valuable energy and racks up your electricity bill.
It helps to place a reminder by the office door, especially if this is an office-wide initiative. It’s all about helping everyone remember to do these little things that’ll help you achieve your green goals!
Easy Workplace Sustainability Tips
The next step is to spread some seeds around your desk, use all-natural corn and gluten-free fertilizers, and watch your new garden grow. Just kidding!
If you want your team to bond AND save the planet, here are some easy, impactful changes you can make for a greener workplace:
- Eco-friendly furniture: Choose items made from recycled or recyclable materials. Look for retailers that have implemented the Cradle-to-Cradle protocol.
- Lighting: Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents and LEDs.
- Ventilation: Ensure good airflow and use low-VOC paints and materials.
It doesn’t have to stop there. You have so many options available to create a greener workplace. To prove it, here are more office sustainability ideas and tips:
- Carpool to reduce your carbon footprint
- Subscribe to online magazines/newspapers rather than print
- Maximize your office space’s natural lighting to reduce the use of electricity
- Opt for bathroom hand dryers instead of paper towels
- Offer a water bottle filling station to reduce plastic water bottle usage
- Donate or recycle old company electronics
3 Green Team Building Activities to Get Everyone Involved
If you’re struggling to get the whole team involved in your sustainable business practices, try engaging them with green team building activities! Programs like these can make office sustainability initiatives much more fun for everyone involved.
1. Go Green Racing
Check out Go Green Racing, our charity team building program. It offers a fun and educational way to promote eco-friendliness among your team members. They’ll play, compete, learn, and help out local schools in the process!
2. Impact Online
If you and your team are interested in learning how to take steps towards a more sustainable future, you might like Impact Online. It’s an engaging charitable event that empowers your team members to make meaningful changes and work towards a more sustainable future.
3. Green-Off Competition
This one’s great for in-person and remote employees alike. With a green-off competition, employees will split into smaller groups and compete to see which one can take the most steps toward a greener workplace. In addition to getting your employees involved, this one is a great way to improve workplace wellness for everyone who participates.
Start by providing your team with a list of ways they can get involved. Here are some examples:
- Use mugs, glasses, bowls, utensils, and other relevant items that help reduce waste.
- Add an LED desk lamp to the workplace.
- Decorate with plants, solar-powered gadgets, and eco-friendly office supplies.
- Find unique ways to upcycle waste.
Enlist an unbiased panel of judges to score each team’s workspace on a scale of 1-10 at the end of the week. Then celebrate with a fun eco-friendly prize for the winner, plus something fun to reward each team that participated.
Make Your Office Greener Today!
Are you ready to build a greener workplace? The sooner you start, the more of an impact you’ll have on the planet.
The ideas we’ve shared above are just the beginning. There are tons of ways your company can work toward sustainability in the workplace.
If you’d like help getting your team members involved, we’re here to help! Contact TeamBonding today—we’ll create the perfect eco-friendly event to kick off your new sustainable office initiative.
