You are probably familiar with the terms Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Go Green Initiative as they have been bantered around your non-profit, school or office. Many of you probably think these are reserved for larger organizations than the one you work for. But truth be told, responsible sustainable practices can be observed by everyone from the one-person office to the multi-layered enterprise and everything in between.
“Companies are feeling the demand from their own employees to do good and be more sustainable,” stated Stacey Crivello, Account Director for ACCESS Destination Services, an organization that plans events worldwide.
Here are five easy ways to get your company started in implementing sustainable practices today. In addition, I will share with you the many ways Hartford Technology Rental implements our own green program.
5 Steps to Sustainability
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Eliminate as much paper as you can.
Whether it is an initiative to rent scanners and shredders to get rid of all paper in those dusty file cabinets, or put everything on a cloud computing rental or replace all printed marketing collateral with Apple Mac rentals; all of these practices help create a clutter-free, green environment and allow documents to be accessed anytime from any location.
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Set up single stream recycling stations.
Allowing paper, aluminum, plastic, cardboard and glass to all be recycled in the same bin, makes it easy for your co-workers to recycle. Make sure you have several stations conveniently located around the building and have one or two individuals constantly monitoring use – either to dump the bins into the recycling dumpster outside or encourage more recycling among the team.
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If you have a cafeteria or are holding an event off-site, check into what happens to leftover food.
Every state has specific health regulations about how leftover food can be handled, so I would start there. Then, go to your cafeteria and event venue to determine if they already have a non-profit destination in place for the food. If not, suggest 2-3 places that would welcome your leftovers (i.e. homeless shelters, churches). Make sure the non-profit has volunteers to come pick up the food and/or the venue will arrange drop-off on a timely basis.
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Instead of presents and goody bags, use your budget to contribute to a cause.
Whether you are planning an employee appreciation event, staff holiday party or trade show, now is the time to look at any budget allocation you have for a swag bag. Rather than giving your team items they can definitely do without, consider collecting a donation from each employee and matching it, dollar-for-dollar. Here are three very worthwhile organizations to check into:
- Stop Hunger Now – Their mission is to stop world hunger. In addition to a monetary contribution, you can host a meal packing event of your own.
- Clean the World – They collect and recycle soap and hygiene products discarded every day by the hospitality industry. You can host a hygiene kits event and distribute these kits locally to non-profit organizations in need.
- Shelter Box – is a kit that has all the shelter and food supplies to house and feed 8 individuals up to 10 days. These kits cost $1,000 each and are sent all over the world to areas in distress. I am a Rotarian and a few months ago we raised enough money to send one box to Nepal after that devastating earthquake occurred.
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Hold an Outdoor Clean-Up Event.
Whether it is the public beach, national or local park, promote a half- or whole-day event where your team cleans up the environment and plants trees or foliage, if necessary.
Hartford Technology Rental Has a Green Program
At Hartford Technology Rental, we participate in making the earth a greener place by:
- Recycling toner cartridges from printer and copier machine rentals
- Recycling laptop batteries
- Recycling paper, plastic and cardboard at every office
- Purchasing eco-friendly cleaning products for office and inventory clean-up
- Maintaining our fleet thus reducing fuel consumption and causing less CO2 emissions
Let us help you go green in your office or event — call us for a fast quote at 888.520.5667 today!