Sustainability is more than just a buzz word when it comes to business. If you try to use more sustainable practices, your business will improve in a number of ways. First, you can save money by being more efficient, so you’re helping your business as well as the environment. Second, you might also be able to save money through tax breaks, depending on local government guidelines.

Customers are also interested in more sustainable businesses, which means that your efforts to be eco-friendly can and will help your marketing efforts. With this in mind, how can your business be more environmentally friendly?

A good place to start is to make your business more energy efficient. This is because you can have more of an immediate impact on your bottom line, without really making any sacrifices in productivity. Electricity costs money, and the more electricity you use, the more it eats into the running costs of your company. 

As well as reducing the amount of electricity you use, it’s a good idea to cut down on water wastage for the same reasons. It costs less and it helps the environment.

There are a few ways to do this. First, deal with any maintenance issues that might use more water or electricity. Dripping faucets might seem like a minor annoyance, but a constant drip can waste gallons of water, all of which are paid for.

When devices aren’t in use, turn them off rather than letting them sleep. Switch off lights and, in general, make sure that things aren’t using electricity when they aren’t needed. A smart system can allow you to control the heating and sometimes even the devices with one touch of a button, so it’s much easier to turn everything off rather than walking through the building doing it manually.

Another way that you can change how you use electricity is to pay more attention to the source of your energy. Sustainable and renewable sources of energy are a lot more popular now, and it’s also easier to make sure that you only use these energy sources.

You can either get power through a private company that only uses green energy, which would be good for marketing purposes as you can mention this. Or you can rely on your own energy by installing wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries. This means that you don’t have to rely on another company or pay for electricity, but it does come with the higher up-front costs of having to manage your own electricity.

Another way to make your company more efficient and environmentally friendly is to go paperless. Offices go through a massive amount of paperwork which, if left unchecked, can represent thousands of trees being chopped down over the year.

However, if you switch to a paperless approach, you’re not just using less paper, you’re also creating more efficient business practices. You can communicate with people instantly by using devices rather than paper, and you can also store a lot more information on a computer than you can using a binder.

Often, a lot of the difficulty in making the switch comes down to training. But people are more used to using computers in the workplace than ever before, so look for more ways to cut down on the amount of paper your workers use.

If your business makes and sends out physical products, you have a few extra ways to be more sustainable. An obvious thing to consider is the materials you use to make your products, as well as package them. Ideally, the most important thing should be quality.

You want to make sure that the materials you use are appropriate for the product, as well as affordable. But another consideration should be how environmentally friendly the materials are. This applies to how renewable materials might be, as well as how those materials are manufactured in the first place.

Packaging materials should be both sturdy and eco-friendly. Try to cut down on the plastic your company uses and focus on biodegradable packing materials instead, such as plant-based packing peanuts that are made from the waste product of soya plants. Finally, use a sustainable delivery company that is able to deliver products quickly, safely, and with as little impact on the environment as possible. All of this will stand your company in good stead with your customers and boost its reputation.