Reaching the UK’s goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050 is a crucial step we need to take together to steady climate change and fight back against the detrimental effects global warming.

So how can your business embed cost effective sustainability into its regular practices?

We’ve put together a list of tips below to help:

• Consider swapping the most used items within your workplace to sustainable alternatives. Examples of typical product areas to switch include cleaning and catering supplies, health and safety equipment, PPE & hygiene products, and office consumables (which include stationery, accessories, filing items).
  
  
• The advantage of swapping to ’greener’ alternatives include the likelihood of less harmful chemicals being used by staff on a day-to-day basis. Switching to products that come from a more natural composition for example, will increase the likelihood of the products being cruelty-free and therefore not tested on animals.

There is a comprehensive range of eco-friendly products on our website. We recently introduced a leaf categorisation system to enable clients to make better informed decisions too. See here for more details. This explains the eco leaf rating for products when browsing our site.

• Minimise waste by moving to refillable writing utensils. This directly ensures plastic waste is kept to a minimum and reduces the chance of perfectly useful writing utensils being thrown away when the ink can just be replaced.

• Another step towards a more sustainable workplace could be to buy in bulk. This will result in less packaging and can save money per unit. One example could be replacing individual sugar sachets, with a large bag of sugar.

• Incorporate smart power strips into the workplace. This is a replacement for a standard plug socket which even when something is plugged in and off draws a small amount of power. Smart power strips ensure the power is completely cut off when the device in question goes into standby. This should be incorporated for all the devices within the entire workplace as the substantial number of devises as a group could draw a large amount of power. Therefore, smart power strips would eradicate this.

• Give consideration to the environmental performance and practice of your suppliers. In particular, build close relationships with companies who are ISO14001 accredited; the most widely known and widely used international standard on environmental management systems. MBM Omega is proud to have held this accreditation since 2010.

If you’d like to boost your business’ sustainability further and lower your carbon footprint, please contact us.

How we can enhance and measure our progress

One way we can measure our progress in relation to creating a sustainable workplace would be through measuring our carbon footprint and the effect on global warming it is having; following this setting reduction targets that everyone can get behind and support moving forward. Progress will depend on everyone getting involved in creating a sustainable workplace. Also, through measuring progress this will show your team that their effort has made a positive impact towards achieving the UK’s aim of zero carbon emissions by 2050. One of the major steps MBM Omega has taken to reduce our carbon footprint includes switching to electric vehicles for our London deliveries and installing solar panels at our HQ. Finally, click here for further information into the Governments, Net Zero Strategy.

Conclusion

There is a myriad of ways we can improve sustainability within the workplace, from something as simple as making small product swaps to wider considerations such as changing buying habits. We, as a collective, have the responsibility of making the right choices for our future - let’s make the required changes together.