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    • 3 min read

New Year’s Resolution: Help the Environment From the Office

New Year’s: a holiday filled with glitter, countdowns, and a promise that you’ll make a resolution and stick to it. While the year 2020 is an exciting start to a new decade, it’s important that we reflect on the climate impact of the years that led up to it. Climate change is becoming more and more intense, which means the actions we take to fight against it need to as well. This makes 2020 the perfect year to set goals for your work environment that will benefit the one around you. Here is a list of some easy and eco-friendly workplace resolutions.

Use reusable bottles and lunch containers

A big way to make an impact this year is by using reusable containers for the food and drinks that you bring to work. Swapping paper and plastic bags and bottles for reusable containers not only reduces the amount of waste your meal produces, but it also diminishes the need to constantly buy single-use versions. Each minute, about one million plastic bottles are sold, and each day, landfills and incinerators receive over 60 million. This year, you can save both money and the environment by vowing to not contribute to these numbers.

Participate in Meatless Monday

While swapping disposable containers for reusable ones is a great way to help the environment, what you fill them with is just as important. Meatless Monday is a movement that encourages people to have one vegetarian day a week, which makes a surprisingly big difference. For example, if you were to swap just one beef-containing meal with a vegetarian option, it would be the equivalent of not driving your car for 320 miles. Being a part of this movement allows you to make a drastic change for the environment while barely even making one in your own life. 

Shop sustainably for your work wardrobe

Believe it or not, a great, and maybe surprising way to help the environment from your office is through the clothes that you buy for it. Because of unsustainable fast fashion trends and fabrics, the fashion industry is responsible for 8% of the world’s climate impact, or 1.2 billion tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions. To lower this statistic, you can make eco-friendly fashion choices for your work wardrobe, such as shopping secondhand. 

Swap paper documents for electronic

Climate change is becoming more and more prevalent in our lives, but so is technology. One way that you can use this to your advantage and fight against the rising temperatures at work is by replacing paper documents with electronic versions. According to a 2014 study, just a 10% reduction in U.S. company paper usage would produce results equivalent to 280,000 cars not being on the road for an entire year. With statistics like this and such easy access to technology during this day and age, using electronic documents instead of printed is an almost effortless way to help.

 

If there is one thing that all of these resolutions have in common, it’s that they show how easy it is to help the environment from your workplace. The start of 2020 is the perfect time to set goals that will benefit the world you live in – so that next New Year’s it’ll be a better place.

Cover photo by Nick Fewings

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