4 ways to make your office space more eco-friendly

With millennials flooding the job market, it's time to make changes to your office space. Amongst this socially conscious group, 59 per cent believe they have at least a fair amount of accountability for protecting the environment, according to a survey by Deloitte, and this impacts upon where they decide to work. 

So with that in mind, here are four ways you can make your commercial office space more environmentally friendly

1. Insulation and ventilation

A comfortable ambient temperature is obviously important to any office, but heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems use a lot of power. You can give your HVAC a break by ensuring that your office space has efficient insulation and ventilation. Not only will this reduce the amount of electricity your office space uses, it will also prolong the life of your HVAC, which is often expensive to replace. 

2. Use LED lighting

A highly efficient technology, LED lighting can produce the same brightness as traditional bulbs, but uses far less electricity. In addition, you can expect your LED bulbs to last 5-10 times longer, according to the Australian government, meaning that fewer of them end up in landfill sites.

You could also consider other energy saving initiatives relating to lighting including timers or motion sensors. Such additions mean that you're not unnecessarily lighting the office after hours, which is another huge drain on electricity. 

3. Go paperless

Paperless offices are becoming the norm. With advances in cloud storage, the spreadsheets and physical documents on which businesses used to depend are quickly becoming a thing of the past. 

The environmental benefits of such initiatives are obvious: by using less paper fewer trees are cut down, and needless to say any waste that you do produce should be recycled wherever possible!

By reducing or eliminating paper use, not only are you saving the planet, you'll also save yourself a bit of cash in the process.

4. Look at what you're buying in

Encourage your staff to be more environmentally friendly by considering what you buy for their use in the office. For example, if you're providing tea, coffee or other refreshments, go organic. Whilst some may see these products as a fad designed to make you part with more money than usual, organic produce really is better for the environment than regular alternatives, and is often more tasty!

Similarly, supplying staff with silverware, plates and mugs will discourage the purchasing of single-use plastics – a hot issue in green circles at the moment.

If you're looking into buying or renting commercial property on the Gold Coast, or improving your current set up, the team at Ray White Surfers Paradise is there to help. Get in touch today!