Sunday April 22nd, 2018. Earth Day.

Earth Day has grown into the world’s largest environmental movement, where over one billion people in 195 countries now participate in Earth Day activities.

What is Earth Day?

Earth Day is an annual global event, with a mission “to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide.” Each year, Earth Day is based on a different theme – in 2017, it was Environmental and Climate Literacy. This year, it is “End Plastic Pollution”, an increasingly worrisome problem, especially when plastics find their way into our oceans. Plastic can cause serious damage to animals along the entire food chain, which increasingly renders our environment unsustainable.

Why Earth Day is a great reminder to protect your people

Each year, Earth Day is a reminder to the world to protect the environment. From air pollution to plastics, millions of people around the world are leading the cause for greater awareness on environmental issues.

However, our outdoor environment should not be the only focus of the sustainability conversation. In Australia, 80% of us live in urban areas, where we spend 90% of our time indoors. Earth Day for years has been focused on the pollution problem we face around the world, and the scary fact is that our indoor environments can be up to 10 times more polluted than our outdoor environments. Employee wellbeing has become a vital aspect of any workplace – we also have an important responsibility to protect our people, and you can do just that right throughout the year.

Below are some great tips for you to “greenify” your business!

Go Green by introducing indoor plants

Indoor plants are a beautiful, simple and affordable way to create a sustainable indoor environment. According to the University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) “Indoor Plants Work” study, indoor plants are effective in removing harmful indoor pollutants, and can contribute to two Green Star rating points:

• Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs): Computers, printers and furniture are all examples of things we believe drives productivity. However, these emit VOCs, a type of indoor pollutant. Just 3-6 office plants can reduce VOCs to 100 parts per billion (ppb), well below the Australian minimum benchmark of 500 ppb.
• Carbon Dioxide: Indoor plants can reduce this by 10-25%.
• Carbon Monoxide: Indoor plants can reduce this by 90%.

Indoor plants, such as Green Walls deliver magnificent business benefits. Movements such as “WELL Building Standard” recognise and increase awareness of the important of healthy buildings – indoor plants play a key role: they cover 75% of the World Green Building Council’s criteria for a healthy indoor space.

Use less paper

One positive of the rise of digital has been the reduction in use of paper.

To drive this further, be sure to check your print settings:

• Use draft quality settings.
• Print double-sided.
• Decrease page margins.

Go “reusable” wherever possible!

A simple way to achieve this is to provide your people with their own re-usable water bottles to reduce disposable cup usage. Consider earth-friendly materials instead of plastic!

So, this Earth Day, we challenge you to look at how sustainable your business is. How healthy is your space? What kind of environment your people are working in? What impression does your space give clients and visitors?

By continuing to look for ways to improve our daily operations, we can all work can make a significant impact – leading to a healthier, greener planet and an environmentally-friendly way of life.