Making a greener business
It’s Blog Action Day, a time for many of us to contribute to a far-reaching environmental discussion. For our part, we’d like to share two techniques for reducing our impact and “cultivating” a greener workplace.
We have the benefit of being a small, distributed company that works (in large part) virtually. Our team’s commutes are almost always on foot and rarely require a step outside. The technology is there for us to communicate well if we are spread by meters or miles. The benefits of this situation extend well beyond those for the environment: schedule flexibility, comfort of the working environment, more time with family, less time commuting, and casual work attire, to name but a few. The environmental benefits are pretty obvious: no commuting and fewer physical assets along with the associated reduction in manufacturing and transportation costs of those assets. Our organization benefits from the happier, more productive team members and the occasional “extra mile” they will voluntarily go in return.
Whereas the distributed company strategy is not primarily motivated by being green, our avoidance of printed material is. We see some cost savings in not printing much or having to file it, store it, dispose of it, etc., but our business wouldn’t require large volumes of paper anyway. The fact is, we simply don’t need the paper, so why use it? We send proposals and invoices electronically. Same with reports. When done properly, digital communications are fast, reliable, secure, and they’re much easier to store and retrieve later than their paper counterparts.
These are two ways that other organizations can reduce their environmental impact, even if only implemented in small, limited measures. Maybe each employee gets only one work-at-home day a month. Perhaps you print on two sides of a sheet of paper instead of one. Maybe you ask for electronic copies of reports, or send invoices by PDF.
The real question is, why? Why be greener? Why reduce our impact? The answer is pretty simple: in light of the benefits described above, the limited resources around us, and the interdependencies between us, why not?
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