The Road Towards a Truly Earth-Friendly Office Building

There are numerous benefits of greening up your office building – not just for you, but for your employees as well. By creating a greener office environment, you’ll be reducing your businesses’ carbon footprint, boosting your employees’ motivation, as well as reducing your overhead costs since your office building will become more energy-efficient.

Here are ideas you can use to turn your office building into a more earth-friendly environment:

Consider Solar Upgrades

The main goal of solar power systems is to efficiently convert the energy that the sun provides into electric power that you can use for your office building. With the passage of time, the money you save by reducing your electric bill – or eliminating this utility completely – will eventually compensate for the original cost of your solar power system. Unlike fluctuating utility rates, the payments for your solar power system will be fixed over time.

From the environmental standpoint, the power generated by your solar power system is certainly not the one obtained through some polluting coal-fired utility plants. An efficient solar power system provides you a great opportunity to contribute to a much cleaner environment and save money in doing so. What’s more, contemporary models for solar panel finance allow you to pay for your new system with no money down and up to 100 percent financing, which is especially important if you are trying to stabilize cash flow.

Improve the Indoor Air Quality

Another way you can significantly improve your office conditions is by taking care of the indoor air quality. Stuffy areas hinder productivity significantly as the lack of oxygen makes people feel sleepy and negatively affects their cognitive performance, and sleepy employees are definitely something nobody wants to have.

Indoor air, more often than not, also contains significantly more pollutants than the outdoor one. That’s why you should encourage your employees to air out their offices as often as possible. Again, if this is not a viable option, you should replace your existing HVAC system with a more efficient one, or you should definitely install it if you don’t already have it. To make this somewhat expensive upgrade a bit easier on your budget, look for PACE eligible contractors in your area. And remember, the cleaner the air -the healthier the employees; the healthier the employees – the fewer sick days; the fewer sick days – the more job gets done.

Green Roof and Green Walls

Another thing you can do to reduce your overhead costs is green up everything you can – literally. Green roofs are excellent at keeping the temperature in your office building at the optimum level, by working as an additional layer of insulation, thus reducing the need for the artificial air conditioning which will, in turn, reduce your energy bill. Green walls work the same way, but they also make the indoor air cleaner and safer, as plants consume the CO2 and release oxygen in return. Decorating your office with potted plants is another great idea that will both improve the quality of air in your office space and look amazing. Besides, there are numerous studies suggesting that potted plants increase happiness and productivity of your employees, especially if you let them choose their own desk plant.

Reduce Paper Use

In this age of technology, using a lot of paper is simply seen as wasteful behavior. There really is no need to print every single file out, especially since there are so many file-sharing platforms, as well as numerous options for keeping your valuable data safe. For important notices, whiteboards are a much more efficient solution.

Finally, instead of using plastic or paper water cups, encourage your employees to use reusable mugs. You can even make everyone a custom mug and glass set – this will be a one-time investment that will significantly reduce the amount of trash your business produces on a daily basis, thus making it greener.

Take Care of Lighting

The first and the easiest step towards increasing your office’s eco-friendliness is taking care of the lighting. working in a poorly-lit space causes eye strain and can significantly hinder productivity. Aside from that, the human body requires light of different undertones throughout the day – for example, blue undertone in the morning and red undertone as the day progresses. Because of this, you should try your best to bring as much natural light in your office space as possible. Not only will this boost your employees’ productivity, but it will work wonders for their overall well-being. It will also significantly lower your energy bill as you won’t have to resort to using artificial light for the majority of the day.

If introducing ample natural light is not an option, however, you should replace all of your existing light bulbs with LED light bulbs. Not only are LEDs more eco-friendly, but they are also excellent at mimicking natural light, which will definitely boost your employees’ productivity.

As you can see, the road to a true earth-friendly can be long and somewhat expensive. The transition is not easy, and it can’t be achieved overnight. However, once everything falls into place, you’ll start reaping numerous benefits of your new, green office space, including numerous cost savings, and happy, healthy and productive employees.

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Author Bio:

If one thing is true about Lillian Connors, her mind is utterly curious. That’s why she can’t resist the urge to embark on a myriad of green living projects and spread the word about them. She cherishes the notion that sustainable housing and gardening will not only make us far less dependent on others regarding the dwellings we inhabit, but also contribute to our planet being a better place to live on.