By Laura Johnstone
The opportunity for taking stock of your business operations, to find areas for improvement, is often best achieved during the summer season. One way of taking stock is to identify opportunities in your facility using an eco-efficiency lens.
Improving your business’ eco-efficiency can revolve around a number of key themes, including water conservation, hazardous chemical management, carbon footprint assessment, energy reduction and waste reduction. Simply put, the more you know about your business and the way it operates, the better chance you have in achieving straightforward and eventually substantial improvements in these areas.
This checklist poses questions to help you envision the opportunities that might lie ahead for your business.
1. Do you have a public Sustainability Statement and Environmental Policy? This demonstrates your commitment to environmental initiatives and indicates how you plan on making green changes throughout your business.
2. Are you supply chain conscious? Purchase products that are environmentally friendly in nature and design.
3. Do you have reduction goals and targets? Calculate your footprints (fuel, electricity, water usage and waste amounts) in order to set baseline measurements and reduction goals. This will allow you to measure changes and determine areas of improvement.
4. How successfully do you reduce, reuse and recycle? Take all reasonable steps to reduce unnecessary electricity, water, waste and fuel consumption. It can be as straight forward as solid waste sorting bins (i.e. organics, recycling, etc.).
5. Can you replace old technologies with new ones? Switching an oil-fired boiler for one that runs on cleaner or alternative fuel sources, or replacing old vehicles with hybrid ones, can make long-lasting differences to your fossil-fuel consumption and dependency.
6. Do you use any alternative energy sources? There are a multitude of alternative energy choices for different energy needs, including heating and electricity. Consider incentive or rebate programs like ones offered by Natural Resources Canada, www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/com/, for greater payback.
7. How often do you check equipment? Perform routine checks of equipment and processes to ensure equipment is working at the most efficient rate and to prevent and detect errors.
8. How are your chemicals managed? Examine storage and handling facilities for onsite chemicals and ensure proper housekeeping and inventory management is practiced.
9. What indoor conservation initiatives do you have in place? A simple way to become more eco-efficient is to switch to energy efficient lights and water fixtures, as well as double paned, well-sealed windows and dual-flush toilets.
10. How are your employees involved? Employees are the backbone of any successful operation. If they aren’t actively participating in eco-efficiency initiatives, you will not maximize their benefits. Get employees involved in the suggestions and solutions of problem solving.
Laura Johnstone is an Eco-Efficiency Centre Environmental Researcher. For more information, please contact the Eco-Efficiency Centre at (902) 461-6704 or by email at eecentre@dal.ca.
