While this might seem like an outrageous headline, it is simply the truth. When companies or freelancers decide to collaborate and join serviced offices or private members clubs, they are making a vote for the environment. There are a lot of different ways to help lessen our impact on the environment, and this is one of the most creative and unique ways that will both enhance a business is return on investment as well as help them help the earth.
Let’s take a look at the alternative scenario.
In most cases, people who run small companies or freelancers have to rent out their own office space if they want to have a place to work that is not their house. This means that there are a lot of extra costs incurred in running each separate building, powering the building, having all of the utilities set up, etc. While it might seem like a small impact, by putting a lot of small companies under one roof in a high quality serviced office, this allows there to be a central area for most of the amenities. Instead of having to replicate the coffee room, the cafeteria, and the bathrooms in every single office, a serviced office allows for a much more centralized design.
Good for everyone!
The ability to centralize a design like this is an absolutely massive impact on our environment. You have to think about all of the downstream effects of not replicating all of these facilities for each individual business person. Not only will you save on all of the utility costs associated with running a business, but every single room will help the environment in the sense that it will be shared by multiple people. The materials that are used to produce bathrooms, coffee rooms, and break rooms will only have to be used once instead of many times over. This means that we will stop depleting our natural resources, or at least decreased the rate at which we deplete them. Most people don’t even think about this aspect of environmental consciousness, especially with regards to business.
Corporate Social Responsibility – Even for the small businesses?
The simple truth is that business is becoming ever more complex and the differentiation between business and environmental responsibility is getting to be murky. While some see this as a hindrance to profits and greater revenues, the intelligent entrepreneur or business owner realizes that this is something that carries the potential for huge advantage. By consolidating your business and collaborating with other business owners in the area to join a serviced office, you are not only reducing your costs but also increasing your likability in the minds of environmentally conscious consumers. These days, the environmental movement is picking up steam. There are businesses that are neglecting this and it is showing in their bottom line. If you recognize trends as they happen, you’ll really capitalize on them more readily. The simple fact is that environmentalism is a growing trend that also happens to be a very positive movement of its own right. Being able to proudly state that your business that is environmentally conscious and that you deeply care about the effect of your business on the environment will go a long way into procuring both new customers and keeping old customers.
That’s going to give you a massive advantage when it comes to dealing with competitors. Most business owners, especially those of the baby boomer generation, simply think that environmentalism is a fad that will pass like the blowing wind. However, they have no perspective and no ability to foresee what’s actually going to happen in the future, simply because they have lived the life of material abundance. Those of us who are living as generation X or generation Y realized that the world is not an unlimited resource to be exploited for our own gain. While we are not suggesting that you make environmentalism the core focus of your business, it isn’t nevertheless a good idea to implement the principles into your core beliefs. It’s going to go a long way in attaining that competitive edge that is necessary in today’s cutthroat business world.
By author John Szabo. John is mostly involved with writting on business related topics, but office life is something he enjoys as well. This time he writes for DryLand Serviced Offices London, the premier retailer of London offices.