Helpful Tips to Go Green in 2020

Going green and sustainability is a hot trend for modern businesses. While we’ve all been distracted with the pandemic recently, now is the time to be creative with going green.

Has your company begun to take steps to keep up with this shift to more sustainable practices?

According to a survey conducted in 2018, one of the reasons why some businesses are more attractive to customers than their competitors is they are more transparent about how you operate the company. For example, the businesses that use social media to alert their customers when their network is offline or how they are committed to sustainability, or what they are doing to improve customer support keep customer loyalty.

Taking steps to improve the environment is a big winner in the eyes of the customer so with this in mind, in this article we look at how you can begin implementing sustainable practices into your day-to-day business operations.

Helpful Tips to Go Green in 2020

Migrate to the Cloud

Having on-site servers is a significant drain on your resources. You have to make a substantial upfront investment, and even if you can afford it now, the cost of maintenance may grow to levels that are too high in the future. These services also require quite a bit of real estate at your business.

With the cloud, though, you are storing your data off-site, in a remote data center that will provide you with superior infrastructure efficiency.

Cloud computing can also help to reduce what is needed for the IT infrastructure that you have on-site, and this is a flexible solution and can be up- or downgraded as required and as your requirements change. It is this level of flexibility that makes cloud computing a smart alternative. It helps to eliminate the need to make physical upgrades that are more expensive.

Become a Paperless Business

Many businesses have made the switch from hard copy to digital, but your business may still be resisting the change. Locate wherein the company, your workers are using the printer more than they need to, including using it to fax hard copies.

You can even teach your employees how to fax from their computer, which eliminates the need for a paper-based machine, further reducing the paper consumption each day. By getting rid of all the paper, your office will be cleaner, and more aesthetically pleasing.

Technology Maintenance

Rather than replacing your laptops and monitors, consider if you can survive another year or even six months before upgrading them. Plus think if your business can rebuild the databases, and remove clutter to free up disk space and speed up the processing.

While the tech giants encourage us to upgrade to every new device like the latest smartphone, is it good for the planet? No. Every item of technology uses finite resources, including plastics made from fossil fuels, also metals like silver. Going green is a vast undertaking for every business, and every action taken to reduce its carbon footprint is a step in the right direction.

Use Smarter Energy-Saving Solutions

When you reduce your energy consumption in your office or workplace, your company is taking a big leap in the right direction. Let your workers’ remote work at least part of the week. When your workers are not in the workplace, they are not consuming power, so this is an instant energy-saving solution.

Downsize to a smaller office. With less staff on-site simultaneously, your business will need less space, so instead of renewing your lease move to a smaller workplace.

Use lighting that switches off when there is no one in the room, and for temperature control, make sure you’re using a smart HVAC.

Encourage your workers to always ‘power-down’ their workstations when not in use, e.g. overnight. The power save mode does use energy, and when you’ve got a lot of systems in power save mode, the costs add up.

Are You Ready to Go Green?

As you can see, there are several steps your business can take to go green and achieve a more sustainable footprint. Be sure to start here and then expand your efforts as needed.