4 Key Benefits of a Sustainable Workplace

Contributed by Benjamin Fielding, Research Editor, Comparesoft

Climate change remains one of the most disturbing crises of our time, causing more problems than we imagined. Our activities contributing to greenhouse gas emissions are at a record high, and there's a need for environmental sustainability across all areas of society.

Sustainability goals have become an obligation, a corporate social responsibility many businesses are expected to fulfill due to pressure from the government, competitors, and customers. 

One of the many ways businesses have responded to this pressure is by adopting a sustainable approach to their facility management. Many companies are redesigning their facilities and workplaces to be environmentally friendly. While this comes with far-reaching benefits, it's not an easy thing to do. So if you're a facility manager on the verge of joining the trend for sustainable facility management and you're unsure about how to go about it, this article can help. 

What It Means to Be Sustainable in Facility Management

Sustainable facility management is a process that allows facility managers to make strategic structural and operational changes that are channeled towards reducing or eliminating the negative impact of buildings on the environment and the building occupants.

It involves reusing and recycling resources to create a safe and energy-efficient workspace with little to no carbon footprint. The process is unique and offers social, environmental, and economic benefits to organizations that integrate it into their vision and business operations. 

While facility managers in the past were primarily required only to provide an estate suitable for business operations, that has changed over the last few decades. Now, they don't only have that duty, they are additionally required to provide estates that incorporate sustainable and environmental focus.

As the awareness of sustainable facility management continues to grow, so is the number of organizations taking a sustainable approach to their facility management.

Some of the common achievable goals facility managers can achieve include:

Usage of environmentally safe products

When occupants use environmentally safe products, they don’t only reduce environmental pollution, they also enhance the availability of clean air for themselves. So ensuring the usage of safe products is an achievable sustainability goal facility managers can pursue. 

Energy-Efficiency 

Energy efficiency is another sustainable goal for facility management. It can be achieved by adopting sustainable energy-related practices in overall operations, especially in using workplace appliances. Additionally, pursuing this goal would mean that everything we consume today doesn't degrade the resources of survival for people that are yet to come. 

Importance of Building a Sustainable Workplace 

Building a sustainable workplace has become an essential responsibility for business owners everywhere. The beauty of it is that it isn't done solely out of the need to maintain compliance or avoid fines for non-compliance. It is instead done because it is intrinsically important.

It’s a corporate extension of environmental preservation 

Sustainability has become a shared responsibility born out of the need for every member of society to ensure environmental preservation. The corporate world isn't exempted from this social responsibility, and it is, for this reason, that building a sustainable workplace is essential. It's one of the many ways the corporate world submits its contributions toward environmental preservation. 

It’s an avenue for cost management 

One question facility managers have on the verge of adopting sustainability practices is whether sustainability at the workplace comes at a cost. Building certain sustainable business practices in a workplace undoubtedly incur some costs. However, this strategic shift will boost your bottom line in the long run. Building a sustainable workplace is important because it has far-reaching financial benefits. You can manage the cost of some business operations by adopting sustainability in your workplace. 

It retains employees’ engagement and satisfaction  

Building sustainability in your workplace is an effective way to retain employee engagement. It doesn't only make your organization attractive to skilled individuals; it also maintains employee satisfaction which ultimately leads to operational synergy and increased productivity. It even offers them the platform to submit their contribution toward environmental preservation. 

It enhances the company's Reputation  

Consumers today are naturally more supportive of brands that show commitment to sustainability. Hence, building a sustainable workplace is important because it helps organizations extend their customer network. This ultimately results in more visibility, a better reputation, and the maximization of more profits.