Five Ways to Empower your Employees to Conserve Energy

An office building, no matter the number of employees, runs on energy. You have computers, phones, sinks, lights, and many other appliances that are crucial to the functioning of any business.

Reducing the amount of power you use every business day is no easy feat but there are ways for you to let your employees understand that by conserving energy, they are doing a great service to the company and the environment.

Here are five ways to empower your employees to conserve energy:

Appoint an energy czar

This person will act as a point-man (or woman) who will ensure that everyone in the office (even you!) are doing their part to stop wasting energy. Your czar will keep a tally of who is doing a great job at conservation and those who are lagging behind.

Encourage discussion

Have an open dialogue with your employees and get their energy saving suggestions. You may be surprised by how many of your staff members have innovative ideas on how to create an energy-efficient work culture!

Your employees will be more inclined to participate in energy conservation tactics if they feel like they’re a part of the process.

Competitions with rewards

While most employees will want to conserve energy in the workplace out of the goodness of their heart, there are some who may need a little prodding.

Competitions such as Who Can Save The Most Paper or Who Can Waste The Least are a great way to let your employees show you that they care about conservation.

Don’t forget the prizes! Instead of giving your employees gift baskets, give them LEDs bulbs for their workstations or even allow them to work from home one day as a reward. If they’re not in the office to use their workstation, they won’t consume energy.

Email everything

Anything that would usually be printed can be emailed. Company-wide newsletters, memos, even simple notes can be sent electronically. If you do not use an online messenger service such as AIM or Gchat, it’s something to look into.

Instead of your secretary writing down your phone messages, she can send them to you via messenger. You’ll save paper and energy.

Print only when necessary

This point goes along with the previous one. Sometimes we print documents that we don’t even need. If you need to go over a large report, only print the pages that are crucial to your editing. Leave out cover pages, indexes, pages with photos and anything else you can edit directly on your computer.