Tips to Reduce Your – and Your Company’s – Carbon Footprint

As our society gets more and more aware of the planet, the environment, and our places in it, it becomes impossible not to be more aware and proactive about our responsibilities to keep living conditions sustainable for future generations. While we must try to make our daily habits as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible, this environmental awareness extends to our corporate responsibilities, too.

In this day and age, it’s not enough that a corporation is profitable and has relevance in our cultural consciousness. More and more people are holding companies accountable for their roles in the protection of the environment.

It turns out that corporations have extremely large carbon footprints that need to be addressed immediately. CNN reported recently that just 100 of the world’s corporations create over 70% of the world’s carbon emissions. This information came from a 2017 report that was conducted by the CDP, performed in collaboration with the Climate Accountability Institute.

Businesses that fail to adopt best practices that keep our environment and our carbon footprint in mind increase their chances of exposing themselves and falling by the wayside as more and more consumers make conscious choices and choose brands with more sustainable practices that reduce our carbon footprint.
Below, Forest Founders goes over a few ways for your company to reduce its carbon footprint moving forward.

Start with the Water

Water conservation is one of the most effective ways to reduce your Carbon Footprint because it requires a significant amount of energy to maintain and purify water for communities. The EPA asserts that drinking water and wastewater systems account for around 2% of United States total energy use, which ends up yielding well over 45 million tons of greenhouse gases every year. In your workplace, advocate for water-saving measures like low-flush toilets, swapping out stone gardens or installations for water-consuming lawns, and being proactive about repairing leaks.

Go Paperless

When it comes to documentation, it’s a good idea to keep your records and files electronically from this moment forward. There is a remarkable number of tools and services which make it easy to reduce your carbon footprint by reducing the amount of paper your company uses. Paper production produces greenhouse gas emissions and also contributes to deforestation.

Reduce Your Traveling

Air travel and road transportation both have incredibly damaging effects on our environment, playing a huge role in increasing our overall carbon footprint. Businesses can take a more proactive approach toward keeping our planet safe by traveling less, which might mean conducting more meetings through online avenues like Skype, not to mention reducing the number of employees who venture out on a specific assignment where travel is involved.

Incorporate Renewable Energy Sources into Your Business

It’s a fact that we all have to accept that fossil fuels are finite. Companies have a responsibility to start being conscious of (not to mention reducing) overall energy consumption today, which will help businesses are more beneficial for the environment, not to mention gain a competitive edge when new climate policies that are sure to go through legislation come into effect.
Educating your employees about good environmental practices and ways that they can contribute at an individual level is another great way to reduce your company’s carbon footprint.

Catering a Meeting? Go Veggie

Meat products have bigger environmental implications than of grains and vegetables. Animals like cattle, sheep, and goats produce a considerable amount of methane gas, which damages our environment and atmosphere. The USDA reported that 30-40% of our food supply goes to waste, which in 2010 alone amounted to approximately 133 billion pounds (which equaled $161 billion worth of food). Being conscious about what we eat and how much we eat, not to mention cutting down on our food waste is crucial in our efforts to save the planet and the environment.

One Simple Way to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint Instantly

If you’re looking for a simple, straight-forward, and remarkably effective way to reduce your carbon footprint, join Forest Founders today. Our mission is to provide a streamlined subscription service that plants trees for our members on a monthly basis. Start your membership today and we’ll start planting 8 trees and 20 seeds a month on you and/or your organization’s behalf. You can track our progress, participate in new rewards programs, get the metrics on how we’re improving the environment, and even redeem your rewards points through our convenient app.
Forest Founders has planted over 35,000 trees and counting since we’ve gotten started. We work with a wide and diverse network of nonprofit partners, companies, and environmentally-conscious individuals in planting trees all over the world. Start your membership today in order to negate over 2x the average American consumer’s carbon footprint!