You’ve got a warehouse that, from the right viewpoint, appears to stretch out beyond the horizon. Row after row of shelves are piled to the rafters, while the gentle hum of the safety swing gate opening and closing, as well as your employees ambling through their day job, play a calming tune to your ears.
But while you might have a workplace that’s reeling in profits, is it at its most efficient and green?
This might not seem like the biggest worry in the world. Money’s money, right? But if your environmentally unsound business practices are revealed to an eco-conscious public, you’ll be in the centre of a PR disaster.
“Natural” and “Eco-friendly” are watchwords for almost any industry in this post-An Inconvenient Truth world. And those seen to be dragging their feet will eventually be shunned by a public searching for ethical produce.
All this can start with your warehouse. With an optimised workplace, you’re setting a trend for the rest of your company.
With that in mind, what can you do to make your office both more efficient and ecologically friendly?
Mix it up with a mezzanine
You’ve got a warehouse that’s big enough to fit a football pitch – but are you optimising your space effectively?
The space between your floor and ceiling, for instance, is most likely empty. But with a mezzanine floor, you’ll be able to make the most of that wasted room.
Locations across the country are taking part in the mezzanine craze. From mezzanine floors Leeds to London, businesses understand that they need to use as much of their space in the most effective way possible.
Checked and confirmed
You might be a swish head honcho, but chances are you’re probably not qualified in ecological studies. So how will you know where the wasteful holes are in your workplace?
The solution? Find someone who knows their ozone layer from their elbow to survey every nook and cranny in your warehouse. Building surveyors with the environment in mind will define the improvements you need to make in clear cut terms.
How far you take their advice is up to you. But armed with their expert knowledge, you’ll always know the next step to take.
Pile on solar
Solar panels were once seen as little more than an impractical dream. Now, however, they’ve fallen in price and increased in efficiency.
Although they’ll never be a primary source of power in cloudy old Blighty, panels on your warehouse can act as a useful supplementary outlet to take the strain off your fossil fuel usage.
Looking out at the world of energy consumption, it seems inevitable that wind and solar power will soon come into its own. Invest in alternative energy now and you’ll be future proofed for later.