Every day at work is different as you tackle coordinating leasing agreements, and setting up maintenance, in addition to higher-level strategic planning. With so many items on your “to-do” list, adding sustainable or green initiatives can seem overwhelming.
But investing in green business ideas can have a positive long-term ROI for both property owners and tenants. In order to help your clients meet their organization goals, implementing green initiatives can help inspire staff, boosting retention and attraction of new talent. You can also leverage your green initiatives to attract new tenants that value sustainable workspaces.
Green Business Ideas for Property Management
1. Reduce Energy Consumption
One of the simplest ideas is to reduce the amount of energy consumed by your facilities in an effort to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Your region may have renewable energy sources available, but typically a percentage of the energy you consume will produce emissions by burning fossil fuels.
In Ontario, 10% of energy produced is from fossil fuels, specifically natural gas.
Methods that you can implement to reduce your energy consumption include:
- Replace traditional light bulbs with LED light bulbs.
- Install smart electrical plugs to monitor and control energy usage.
- Upgrade the HVAC system to a higher-efficiency model.
Although the upfront cost of implementing some of these changes will be substantial (e.g. for the HVAC system), the long-term payoff is much greater.
2. Reduce Waste
A typical office space with 100 employees will generate 20 bags of garbage in a single week. Decreasing the solid waste that your facilities produce reduces contamination of land and water when thrown into a landfill. Reducing waste is also good for your bottom line, because you can lower the number of garbage pick-ups in a month to reduce the total spend on waste management.
To cut back the waste that your buildings produce, you can invest in recycling bins to ensure that materials are reused and repurposed. To ease the transition and ensure successful adoption, here are a few tips to make recycling easy for your tenants:
- Invest in recycling bins that are colour-coded and clearly labelled.
- Place recycling bins in the main areas of your buildings, making access easy.
- Add pictures in the recycling areas to explain what can be put in each bin.
3. Invest in Environmentally-Friendly Furniture
Whether you are sourcing furniture for new tenants, or replacing office furniture for existing tenants, you might consider used, refurbished, or remanufactured furniture. Not only is this a less-expensive investment for you, but it’s also more environmentally friendly. Refurbished office furniture is repaired and refurbished to look as good as new. Remanufactured furniture, on the other hand, is high-quality used furniture that is taken apart and used to construct new pieces that are modernized with updated colour or fabric patterns.
Here’s how you can explain to your building owners and tenants why refurbished or remanufactured furniture is better for the environment than purchasing new:
- 85-95% less energy and labour is required.
- Solid waste is eliminated from landfills.
- Greenhouse gases emitted during traditional manufacturing processes (e.g. CO2, NOX, VOCs) are minimized.
The Bottom Line for Going Green
In an effort to ensure you are addressing all current and future clients’ facility and property management needs, having a sustainable framework in place will put a step ahead of competing facilities. In addition to helping with your attraction and retention efforts, going green will also save you money in the long run.
Consider Ergonomic Office Furniture to Support Tenant Wellness
To continue to surpass your clients’ expectations, consider providing ergonomic furniture to support workforce wellness. You can even purchase ergonomic environmentally-friendly refurbished office furniture to save money, while aligned with green business ideas.
References:
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/03/6-benefits-of-becoming-a-sustainable-business/
https://www.sustainablebusinesstoolkit.com/top-7-office-recycling-tips/