6 Ways to Mark Earth Day at Your Workplace

Every year, Earth Day is celebrated on 22 April to show awareness and appreciation for the environment.

Celebrating Earth Day is not only good for our planet, but good for your employees too. One of the ways to level up employee engagement is through team-building activities and rounding up your employees for meaningful action and efforts that have a direct impact on their daily lives.

Here are 6 ways your workplace can get involved and play a part in preserving our limited resources:

1. Power down

It is as simple as hitting a button and doing it daily saves huge bucks for the company in a year.  According to research, in a company with 200 computers, turning off the computers and monitors every night and during weekends would save 12,000 pounds a year. Power down electronics such as computers, electric kettles, microwaves and lights in the office when you leave the office for the day rather than put them in energy saving mode.

2. Take public transport/carpool to work

Give your car a break and take the bus or train to work or carpool with a few colleagues if you are staying in the same area as them. Not only will you save money (parking charges, petrol…etc), do a part for the Earth, you gain some exercise and get to learn more about your colleagues during carpool sessions. 

3. Hold a waste-free potluck lunch

While most of us do take-outs or eat at our work desks for lunch, the disposables and box packaging account for more than one-tenth of all plastic, paper and cardboard waste last year. Host a potluck lunch and encourage everyone to bring food from home and eat using reusable plates, cutlery and cups. Not only does eating together creates stronger bonds and boost morale between colleagues, a waste-free potluck lunch contributes to green efforts.

4. Go outside

If your team spends most of their time indoors or all day inside the office, try getting outside. Host a meeting outdoors on bench tables on your company property or try a walking meeting for one-on-ones with your employees. Researchers at Stanford University found that the creative output of people increases by an average of 60 percent when they are walking. Getting up close to nature makes us feel connected to it and reminds us of our responsibility to preserve it.  

5. Go paperless

It may not be practical for each office function to go paperless and some companies have to comply with client needs or legal requirements. For a simple change, reduce paper wastage by printing on double sides of the paper. Move to cloud-based applications that allows you to share data easily within your office and outsiders. For instance, Google Drive and Dropbox are used for collaboration and sharing of files and Evernote can be used to take digital notes. Scan documents into digital format and ask vendors to provide invoices, receipts and documents in PDF formats.

6. Encourage recycling

Make it easier for employees to get into the habit of recycling by setting up recycling bins in the office. Get employees to bring in old clothes, paper, plastic products and sort them into the various bins.

Boost their efforts by giving them a reward or incentive if they are able to meet the recycling standards. Make it meaningful by donating the money collected from recycling to a designated charity organization.