Regardless of the size of a company in this day and age, everyone seems to be rightly concerned with their carbon footprint and making themselves more environmentally friendly. As well as having a clearer conscience, many companies are also trying to cut their emissions to keep a good reputation. Here are a few tips to help cut down your carbon footprint as well as maintaining a positive image.
Energy Efficiency
Perhaps the most obvious piece of advice is to simply ensure that your energy goes as far as possible. Simple changes can be made to absolutely any business to ensure that this is the case. For example if you have an office or a depot; replace those old light bulbs with new, energy-saving ones and make sure that equipment is only switched on when in use. It’s amazing how simple these things are, and how often they are forgotten about. For those who have a little more time and money, it may be worth investing in some timers to ensure that electrical equipment and lights are switched off when the property is vacant.
Another thing that many people don’t consider is to upgrade their technology. Almost everything technology-wise is built with the environment in mind these days, and the newest developments are always likely to be more energy efficient than a ten year-old piece of kit.
Transportation
Obviously, depending on the type of business in question, transport can play a huge part in a company’s carbon footprint. Even if your day to day work doesn’t involve driving as such, the large majority of employees are likely to drive, catch a bus or train to work, whilst deliveries more often than not arrive in a van or wagon.
It wouldn’t be logical to suggest that vehicle use is swapped for an alternative method of transportation as many firms rely on cars and vans to carry out a daily job. However this isn’t to say that cutbacks can’t be made in areas relating to transport. The efficiency of transport can be increased simply through the use of a vehicle tracking device which can help reduce fuel usage by ensuring fleet drivers take the quickest, most direct route and get more miles per gallon of petrol. All this has a knock-on effect in ensuring the company has a smaller carbon footprint.
Carbon Offsetting
A novel idea that doesn’t quite reduce emissions, but allows companies to try and make up for their carbon footprint by contributing to environmentally friendly schemes. The scheme works like this: companies buy so-called ‘carbon credits’ that are measured in comparison to the emissions they have created. Once they are paid for, the money used to purchase the credits goes towards projects such as hydro-electric power stations which, in turn, help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Although a business isn’t quite reducing its own emissions by using this scheme, they are helping reduce them from elsewhere. Whilst this is a nice idea and obviously very beneficial; it shouldn’t be used as a company’s first choice for cutting carbon emissions. The work should probably start from within and, if emissions are impossible to cut, then carbon credits should be considered as the way forward.
