Greening your business has become essential to business longevity, but greening it up a notch doesn’t have to be a time vampire. You don’t have to strike a green committee or schedule monthly consultation meetings. Rather, your staff can lead the charge by coming up with your business’s green practices and integrating them into your daily operations.
To give just one example of the economic benefits of greening your business, when I was recently interviewing prospects for a new position in our warehouse, one applicant told me that our green practices were a key motivation in applying for the position. Not only did we find an engaged new employee, but we avoided a headhunter’s fee of approximately $5,000.
It’s easier than you think to green your workplace; here are some ways to get started rather than paying an expensive consultant to do it for you.
Evaluate how green your business is
It’s important to start with a baseline of your green practices so you can determine key improvement areas. For example, Have you streamlined your business purchases with suppliers who also have green business practices? Are you reducing paper use in your office? Do you have a recycling program? List every initiative and, wherever possible, quantify your current effort so you can set realistic goals for improvements. Once you establish a baseline, post it for staff to see and be proud of.
Set realistic goals for green change
Take your baseline measurements to staff for their input on green goals. Their help in identifying wasteful practices or processes will help you prepare a list of items that will improve efficiency and green your business. For example, we plan to evaluate all of our office forms over the next three months to make sure we have them consolidated and we’re not wasting paper.
Encourage staff to suggest improvements to your business processes
Here’s just one example from my own business. Even though our invoices at Urban Impact are printed on 100 per cent post-consumer waste paper that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council of Canada and is processed chlorine- and acid-free and Green-e certified, our dispatch staff felt work orders were formatted wastefully: a work order could be formatted on half a page rather than taking up a full 8½ by 11 sheet. We print a lot of work orders each year, so that small change makes for a significant reduction in our paper usage and printing costs.
Another example: our accounts receivable staff noticed that a lot of invoices were being mailed out each month for very minor amounts of small recurring charges. The staff suggested switching from monthly to quarterly billing for these customers. With minimal IT investment, we reduced paper and envelope costs and consumption, and reduced our postage costs.
Conduct a visual audit of your waste disposal practices: What are you throwing out?
Take the time to do an inventory of what is being thrown out. Is there enough of this material to justify investigating whether it can be recycled? Better yet, is the material even required? For example, we recently found a significant amount of kraft wrapping paper in a customer’s dumpster. This waste was in fact a grade of paper that could be recycled with cardboard and collected in an existing collection system. If you have identified less obvious candidates for recycling, visit bcimex.ca; the Recycling Council of BC’s free service might find a home for the material.
Also take a good look at your waste stream to try to identify large-volume recurring items that can be recycled instead of being sent to the landfill.
