Green cleaning is one hundred percent necessary! Go green!

From HEITS

Happy 2015! It’s the perfect time to start making new plans and goals for the rest of the year, whether they are personal or professional.  At GBS, we aim to inspire, promote, and enable individuals, communities, companies, and industries at large to go green and reduce their environmental impact as much as possible. In the spirit of New Years’ Resolutions, we’ve come up with a few tips for how you, your business, and your building can make 2015 a better, greener year!

Photo: business2community.com

1) Smaller means greener. If you are planning to relocate your office or business this year, downsize. Or, if you are starting from the ground up, choose efficiency over luxury and construct a smaller and smarter building. After all, a smaller building is automatically a greener building; less square footage means lower energy costs and lower operating costs, and the reduced need for and consumption of resources means a reduced carbon footprint!

2) Lighten up. Switching out conventional lightbulbs for eco-friendly LED ones is an investment that literally pays for itself. If you have not done this already, do not wait another day! LED lightbulbs require about 1/6 of the energy that incandescent bulbs do, cutting down your building’s energy costs and output considerably (learn more about going green with LEDs here). If you’re planning on remodeling your building or office space, also consider taking advantage of your building’s own natural light and installing windows— better, more efficient windows mean better light, better insulation, and much lower energy costs.

3) Jump on inexpensive opportunities to go green. For very little money upfront, your business and building can make huge strides towards becoming green certified! Aside from switching to LED bulbs (which is one of the most energy and money-saving decisions your building and business can make), there are numerous of other cheap, green solutions that you can easily implement. Create a building-wide compost and recycling program, go paperless whenever and wherever possible, and start a carpooling program and/or bike-to-work club. Going green does not mean spending a lot of money.

4) Get some fresh air. Reduce the number of harmful VOCs in your building’s air and create a healthier workplace by bringing in office plants. Plants act as natural air-filters, and not only improve the office atmosphere but also promote employee health, attendance, and overall work productivity. Clean air is green air and is better air for all!

5) Hire a green cleaning team. One of the best ways for your building to go green is to clean green. In fact, the use of ordinary commercial cleaning products and techniques in your office and building is the opposite of “going green”— not to mention, these products and techniques are extremely toxic, environmentally dangerous, and very wasteful. Ultimately, how an office and building are cleaned is an enormous gauge of environmental responsibility, efficiency, and safety. To learn more about green cleaning, green buildings, and our mission here at GBS, click here!

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year!