Regardless of the type of business that you’re running, it’s likely in your best interest, both financially and from a reputation management perspective, to try to reduce the amount of waste you’re creating.
For some businesses, finding ways to reduce waste can be easy. But for others, the challenge to limit the amount of waste you create either on your own or through your business dealings can be much more difficult. But to help those in either camps make progress, here are three tips for reducing waste within your business.
Start Tracking Your Waste
Before you can really start making any progress toward reducing waste in your business, you first have to know what areas of your business are producing waste, be it a lot of waste or a little waste.
To assist you in uncovering this information, the EPA recommends that you start tracking your waste now so that you can find solutions to your problems in the future. This can be done through various tracking tools to help you see where you’re wasting things like water, energy, and other natural resources. You can also track how much refuse you’re creating. With this information, you can then know where you stand with your waste production so that you can seek to reduce it in an effective manner rather than just making changes for the sake of change.
Work Toward Waste Reduction Goals
Once you know where the bulk of your waste is coming from, you can now begin to work toward legitimate waste reduction.
For most businesses, getting to a point of zero-waste isn’t going to be possible. But despite this, you can slowly work toward this lofty goal. As you do so, Kerri Hollingsworth, a contributor to Entrepreneur.com, recommends that you start by setting short-term goals that you know you’ll be able to achieve, like reusing your waste water. Then, once you’ve reached that goal, you can set additional goals that will serve to get you closer and closer to your ideal level of waste for your business.
Consider Your Options With Packaging
One area that many businesses can work on reducing their waste in is in packaging.
According to Rick LeBlanc, a contributor to The Balance Small Business, companies waste packaging both when they send out their products and when they receive product from their vendors. To address these issues, seek to reduce the amount of packaging you use in addition to encouraging other businesses you work with to use less packaging materials as well.
If you’re ready to start taking steps to reduce waste within your business, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how you can start on this process.
2018 ·