Four tips for making your business more sustainable in 2023
Making your business more sustainable is not only something that benefits the environment, it can often also save you money in the long-term and can even help give you a competitive edge when it comes to attracting and retaining new business.
We’ve compiled four practical and straightforward ways that can make a tangible difference to your business’ sustainability credentials in 2023.
Recycle, recycle, recycle
It’s likely that you already incorporate some elements of recycling into your business operations, but there is usually more that can be done in terms of achieving a low-waste model. The specifics of this will depend on the nature of your business and your working environment, but some examples include:
- Separating in-office or on-site recycling into different bins to help improve the recycling rate. Consider providing separate bins for paper, cardboard, glass, cans and tins and recyclable plastic.
- Recycling IT equipment once it’s no longer needed. Faulty equipment can recycled, but functioning equipment can be wiped and then donated to charities, who will refurbish the devices and provide them to people that need them – keeping them out of landfill.
- Ensuring confidential paper waste is responsibly shredded and recycled e.g. via a company like EvaStore.
Reduce paper usage
Much of what many businesses do now can be digitised, which can make a big difference to paper usage and wastage. Reductions in the amount of printing and hard copies of documents produced is a good way for businesses to reduce the amount of paper they are using and therefore their carbon footprint.
It’s also important to ensure that any paper that is used comes from a responsible recycled source, to again minimise the impact on the environment. It’s no longer the case that recycled paper is significantly more expensive and of lower quality, so it’s a no-brainer for businesses to switch to this much more sustainable alternative.
Use local and sustainable suppliers and services when possible
The smaller the distance that supplies and essential services have to travel to get to you, the better, from an environmental sustainability point of view. It’s also worth taking into account the sustainability of your suppliers and service providers themselves when looking at procurement.
It may be the case that larger national suppliers or providers can offer things slightly cheaper, but this needs to be weighed up against the negative impact on the environment compared to more local options.
This also benefits the local economy, which is good news for your area and the business community.
Look for alternative energy and low-energy solutions
If your business is in a position to have a solar PV (and probably also battery storage) system installed on your premises, this can be a great way to reduce the amount of grid energy your business uses and needs to pay for, whilst also having a significant positive environmental impact.
While this won’t be possible for all businesses, another way to reduce energy usage is to ensure that when old appliances are replaced, the new ones are as energy efficient as possible. This goes for everything from changing strip lighting to LEDs, to replacing the staff fridge with an eco-rated one next time.
Having a company policy in place for staff to ensure that switching off equipment, lights and devices when not in use is part of the daily routine can make a surprising difference over time.
Sustainability is important to EvaStore, and we have the highest possible standards for dealing with paper documents that are no longer required. Find out more about how environmentally friendly our paper shredding service is.