6 Ways Tech Companies Can Go Green

Sustainability has become a bit of a buzzword in recent years. It seems like every company has changed its mission statement to reflect a desire to be environmentally friendly – but is it all just a big grab for better PR? Even if a company’s sustainability comes from a place of corporate greed, making changes to reduce your impact on the environment is a good thing to do for many reasons. Here are some ways to get started.

1. Renewable Energy

As a tech company, your #1 environmental resource is going to be energy. Tech companies use inordinate amounts of energy and the rise of tech has caused a lot of concern around energy conservation. One big way to reduce your environmental impact is by finding a renewable source of energy. Moving your company’s headquarters close to a renewable energy power plant is a pretty clever way to achieve this goal. You can also start small by installing solar panels on office buildings and automated lights throughout. 

2. Go Electric

If your business utilizes vehicles of any kind, consider going with electric power in the future. Emobility is a good way to both hop onto a fun trend and make operations more environmentally friendly. Plus, as a tech company, being at the forefront of all technological advances is a good idea, and new E-vehicles are coming out all the time.

3. Reduce Waste, Increase Efficiency

The energy use within your data centers should be at the top of your list when thinking of ways to reduce environmental impact. You can reduce that energy expenditure by ensuring that your data centers are operating at maximum efficiency. Monitoring the temperature within these centers can also ensure that your energy use stays stable. Having all those cooling fans going to bring the temperature down may not be necessary 24/7, so having them switch off when they’re not needed is a great way to save some electricity.

What’s the best way to achieve efficiency throughout a tech company? By utilizing AI, of course! Adaptive AI systems can be used to provide real-time feedback about your systems. This makes it easy to adjust goals as changes are made, making it possible for tech companies to eliminate waste and increase efficiency without wasting time and manpower. 

4. Make Green Swaps

Little changes like the plates in your break rooms in office buildings might seem like they’ll make a negligible impact. But imagine if green swaps are made throughout offices in every building throughout an entire business. Once you get everyone changed over, the actual impact could be enormous. Eco-friendly software is a swap that can be made without too much disturbance to the workflow and could reduce your company’s carbon footprint enormously.

5. Create ESG Goals

Having a set of goals established along with a plan for executing them will help your company achieve sustainability a lot more linearly. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals are also a great way to establish your company’s reputation with its consumers. Consumers are more likely to support businesses that align with their own values, so ESG goals are a mutually beneficial move for your business to make. 

Before establishing your ESG goals, it can be a good idea to conduct customer surveys to get a feel for what’s important to your supporters. There are tons of possible ways for your business to make improvements and create a better world. Your goals should ideally work well with your business’s mission statement and be relatively easy to integrate into business operations. 

6. Stay Focused

Once your ESG goals are established, it’s important to stick to them as much as possible. It’s easy to get distracted and attempt to reduce plastic use, for example, instead of staying focused on upcycling materials. But by focusing on a singular goal over a long period of time, the impact will be much greater.

Tons of tech companies have made a name for themselves by achieving one significant goal for environmental impact. These goals are all the more impressive because the company chose to hone in on the biggest way they could contribute, rather than trying to do everything at once. Making a big impact can start by making small changes, one day at a time. 

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Interesting Related Article: “Sustainability in Practice: Incorporating Sustainability in Your Financial Decision-Making“