Greening your nine to five: Embracing sustainability in the corporate world
You don’t need to work in sustainability to have a greener work-life. At Green Salon we know that the smallest changes can make a big difference. Here, to show you just how easy it can be, our Oxford Intern, Grace Rees, has put together a quick list to help you climb the corporate ladder without stepping on mother nature!
Many of us find ourselves stuck in the monotonous hum of the 9-5, trapped in the perpetual cycle of get-up, work, go-out, sleep. But, it doesn’t have to that way. It can be just as easy to break out of that rhythm as it was to fall into it.
By introducing a few of our conscious, corporate swaps you may soon find yourself feeling happier and less stressed at work - with nature to thank for it.
Introduce some greenery
Offices can feel pretty dreary at times, and who wouldn’t love a solution that jazzes up the space and is beneficial to both planet and people? Enter, plants. Not only do plants brighten up a place, they also naturally filter toxins from the rooms that they grow in, helping to freshen it up. A study conducted by NASA identified 50 different species of houseplant that can help improve air quality, in turn improving the health and overall well being of your team.
The introduction of plants to office spaces has been found to improve productivity by a study undertaken by Cardiff University’s School of Psychology, highlighting that this simple addition to an office space boosted work output by as much as 15%.
Regardless of how much you may love your job, stress is often an unavoidable element of daily life. Plants can help with that too. Office plants have been shown to reduce stress levels in employees when introduced into the workplace. A University of Technology Sydney study conducted in 2010, found that offices that were spruced up with plants saw a 37% reduction in anxiety and a 58% reduction in reported depression, amongst other benefits such as decreased fatigue levels.
Have a conversation with your boss
There are lots of ways that a conversation with the management at your company can help to kick-start positive change. Simply asking whether your company has a sustainability policy in place is a good start: it can start conversations about what changes can be made to improve your company’s sustainability and office wellbeing.
From installing electric charge points for employees, to considering waste streams, there are lots of ways to create a greener office. Has the canteen thought up any ways to reduce food waste? Is there an innovative way to transform waste into another revenue stream? 886 Royal Mint, for example, is transforming gold from old laptops and silver from old NHS X-rays into beautiful pieces of jewellery.
Consciously commute
I get it, public transport isn’t always the most pleasant way to get to work in the morning, but, especially for those of us who live or work in a major city, public transport networks are much more efficient (in terms of money, time and energy). There are so many options to make your commute a bit more interesting. From taking an e-bike along the backstreets of a city to taking the riverboat service along the Thames to get to work.
And transforming your travel doesn’t have to stop at your daily commute. If you have to travel abroad for work, how about seeing if you can get there by train. Green Salon’s CEO & Founder, Lucy, made it all the way to Morocco from London via train and wrote all about how she did it here if you’re in need of inspiration. How about asking if your company will sign-up to Climate Perks, who work with climate-conscious employers to offer paid ‘journey days’ to staff who travel on holiday by train, coach or boat instead of flying?
Reuse is the new recycle
Looking to save money? Taking a packed lunch with you to work is a great first step. And no, don’t panic, that doesn’t mean spending hours every night preparing the perfect packed-lunch. Making a bigger portion at dinner and taking the left-overs to work the next day for lunch is a quick and easy win. Investing in a few good quality, durable, and leak-proof containers, like Black+Blum’s stainless steel lunchbox*, will keep your delicious food hot until lunch. And most on the market are microwave safe, like Stojo’s collapsible bowls*.
If you are short on time (and leftovers), you could even take your own container to the canteen at work, or your favourite spot for lunch, and ask them to use your reusable container, reducing the use of single-use packaging. As well as food containers, using a reusable water bottle* and coffee cup* also really help to cut back on waste. If just 1 in 10 of us in this country refilled our water bottle, just once a week, we’d save around 340 million plastic bottles a year, according to Water UK.
Don’t worry if you don’t master it all immediately, I’ve been caught walking to the coffee shop, mug in hand, having mislaid my reusable cup! If you need a place to look, we love Stojo* for all our sustainable lunch-tools needs.
What’s YOUR green style? Take our quiz here to find out your best path to a greener life.
We vet each brand for their commitment to sustainability but we are not a certification body, nor are we auditors, and we have taken the approach that we trust brands to tell the truth about their sustainability policies, practices and plans.
Affiliate disclaimer: * indicates affiliate links with brands to help fund the Directory so that we can research further sustainable brands. This does not affect the price you pay.