"Going Green" is Not Just for Big Business

There has been plenty in the news recently about the problem with plastic in our society. Thanks to some alarming scenes in Blue Planet II, it seems we’re all waking up to the damage its doing. As a consequence, the focus on how we can minimise our impact on the environment has never been sharper.

If you’ve been wondering what you could do to contribute to a greener work environment, here are a few things to consider:

Ditch the paper

WRAP estimates that the average office worker uses up to 45 sheets of paper per day and that over half of that is considered waste. It’s an astonishing statistic. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Cloud solutions such as Google Drive or Microsoft's OneDrive mean that documents can be exchanged and collaborated on electronically. It’s quicker and easier for everyone – imagine the joy of no longer having to decipher your colleagues’ scribbles in the margins of printed documents. As well as reducing paper and hassle, you also reduce printer cartridge usage and the need to find more and more storage space for all your files.

You can also automate your finance processes to reduce paper-based systems. SAP Concur makes life better and greener for everyone. Your employees will find it quicker and easier to compile and submit claims via mobile phones and your finance team will find it quicker and easier to process and analyse them. And no one need worry about where to store piles of paper receipts ever again. Similarly, the supplier invoice process can be entirely digitised so you don’t have to print and store hordes of invoices.

Consider journeys to the office

Just under one in five journeys in the UK is the commute to work or for business travel. It means just getting to the office is a big source of pollution – and frustration for many. The cloud solutions that reduce the amount of paper you use also mean you don’t necessarily need to come into the office at all. Working from home some or all of the time reduces pollution but doesn’t need to reduce productivity.

If you’d rather have people in the office, look at green transport schemes to see what they have to offer both your business and your employees. For example, you could consider a cycle to work scheme. If your business lends or hires cycles or cyclists’ safety equipment to your employees the benefit could be exempt from tax on employment income.

Invest in new technology wisely

If you invest in new equipment, invest wisely. When you choose energy saving equipment you’ll use less energy and save money on running costs over its lifetime. You can also claim tax relief on certain items. Products on the government’s Energy Technology List (ETL) perform within the top 25% of all similar equipment available in the UK market so are some of the most efficient available. When you buy any of the products on the list you can claim 100% capital allowance on any product on the list in the year you purchase it under the Enhanced Capital Allowance (ECA) scheme. See here for more information.

Seeing the bigger picture of green

It’s easy to think you’re too small to make an impact on the environment. But it’s small scale actions that lead to bigger change. Plus, as we’ve seen in this blog, going green doesn’t mean making life harder or more expensive. In fact, it can make life easier and cheaper. WRAP says systematic action on waste could save between £400 and £1,000 per year for every employee and that with the right measures, often involving little or no investment, waste costs can easily be reduced to only 1% of turnover.

And those are things it’s easy for everyone to get on board with.