Earth Day: the easy ways to make your business more sustainable

Earth Day seems like a new concept, but this day of celebrating nature and fighting against climate change has been running since 1970 – unfortunately, not many things have changed since then. Considering the challenges our planet faces, it should be Earth Day every day, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t put an extra effort into the fight today. 

When it comes to businesses, deciding to go green can be quite the challenge, but there are many things that companies can do to do their part in the climate change fight and simultaneously send a strong message to their employees and clients.

In fact, in a survey by Sendle, 75% of consumers say that sustainability is extremely important to them. Just another reason to start doing the work and offset all companies’ carbon footprints!

To help you make this change, we came up with a few ways you can easily make your business more sustainable.

Allow remote or hybrid work

Since the beginning of the pandemic, remote work has become the norm for most office-based businesses. If your company doesn’t require your employees to come into the office to get their jobs done, you might want to consider allowing them to work remotely or in a hybrid manner for good. Reducing commutes to the office means using fewer cars, therefore lowering your employees’ carbon footprint. But that’s not the only positive outcome that you could get out of this decision. 

Most people love working from home at least a couple of times a week. Giving your employees this opportunity will make them happier and more productive and will allow your company to become more competitive when it comes to hiring new talents.

Provide public transit commuter benefits

If the kind of business you run does require your employees to come into the office every day, an incentive to convince them to use public transportation instead of their cars might be giving them commuter benefits. In countries like France, companies already offer benefits for people deciding to take their bike or public transportation instead of cars so this option must be working!

Make your office more sustainable

There are many things you can do to make your office more sustainable. The easiest ways would be to limit printing, never leave your equipment on at night, always be mindful of switching lights off when going out of a room, start a composting bin, only use eco-conscious brands and so on but you can also take it a step further and start using a green web hosting solution and choosing a bank that doesn’t support fossil fuel.

All these small things seem insignificant if taken by themselves but become a huge step when done together. Plus, making all these efforts in the office will eventually inspire your employees to reproduce them at home, creating a virtuous circle.

Be mindful of your carbon footprint as a team

When running a business – or even just living life in general – is almost impossible to reach net zero. By simply existing as humans, we are already polluting the earth so the best thing we can do to have the least impact on the planet is try to make the best decisions we can and be mindful of our carbon footprint. 

When it comes to teams, one thing that you can be mindful of is organising events and get-togethers that are the least polluting as possible. This means no wasted food nor disposable plastic, but also seminars that are created with sustainability in mind and team-building events that don’t cost the earth.

You can also offset your carbon footprint using some great organizations such as Cool Effect, Terrapass, South Pole, Native Energy, COTAP.org, Clear, Myclimate or Nori.

Teach your employees about sustainability

Thinking about switching your lifestyle can be daunting but most changes that we can do as individuals are easy to implement and don’t require additional time or money. To help your employees learn more about sustainability, you can organise some fun activities to do together. From a virtual quiz on ecology to a gardening workshop or a vegan cooking class, there are many things you can do as a team that can be fun, help you bond and teach you to be more eco-conscious!