5 Ways to Keep Your Office Eco-Friendly This Holiday

If you want to preserve our planet, you’ve probably realized how wasteful the holiday season can be. Although many businesses are making the effort to go green, it’s easy for organizations to fall short at this time of year. With all the festivities, our environmentally friendly programs often fall by the wayside. However, there are lots of small changes you can make to ensure that your office does its part to help our environment — and you’ll never have to sacrifice your celebrations. Here are five ways to keep your office eco-friendly this holiday:

• Fewer lights, more ornaments
• If you have a company Christmas tree, you can save both energy and money by opting for fewer lights. Instead, decorate with ornaments and natural elements. You can use them from year to year, and you won’t suck up power. If you do need to use lights, leave them on only during peak times of the day and make sure to unplug them — not just turn off a switch — when you leave for the night.
• Holiday card strategy
• Although sending out a holiday greeting to customers is a wonderful gesture, it can be a big waste of paper (and money!). If you can, opt for an email greeting instead. You won’t waste paper and postage, but you’ll still let your clients know you care. If your office still wants to send out a physical card, use recycled paper.
• Have a document shredding party
• Towards the end of the year, many offices use a document shredding company like ours to take care of sensitive data destruction. It’s generally a great idea to use trusted shredding services at least once a year for the sake of security. It’s also a good move for the environment: for every ton of paper that’s shredded, 17 trees, 16,000 liters of water, and 4.2 mwh of electricity are saved. But to make the benefits of shredding documents much more fun, you can use a shredding service as part of your annual office party. Have everyone from the office bring as many papers and files as they can. Our eco-friendly shredding services can turn them into celebratory confetti! We’ll recycle it, of course, but what could be more festive than that?
• Eliminate wasted food
• We all know there’s always way too much food at the annual holiday party. To reduce waste and save money, carefully plan out the exact amount of food that will be at the party and limit how much each person needs to bring. Donate leftovers to those in need — or encourage employees to bring in canned goods for a company food drive.
• Amend Secret Santa
• While some people love this tradition, it can be wasteful. If the majority of employees still express interest in doing a Secret Santa exchange, limit the gifts to eco-friendly or homemade items. Alternatively, you can encourage participants to make donations to charity in their recipients’ names, rather than giving a physical gift. Even if the amount you’ve all agreed upon is small, every little donation helps a worthy cause and will protect our planet by reducing waste.

If you want to plan a green Christmas this year at your office, make eco-friendly shredding a part of your celebration. Not only is eco-friendly shredding a much better choice for our planet, but it can also provide peace of mind and bring the entire company together. To find out more about our paper shredding services, please contact us today!