2040. That’s the year that scientists believe that Antarctica may have its first ice free summer. 

While climate change affects anyone living on the planet, there are huge racial disparities when it comes to pollution and its effects on the historically underrepresented. 

Personal responsibility isn’t the only way to achieve a greener future, however collective action can make a difference when it comes to creating a better tomorrow for the next generation of diverse entrepreneurs. 

Let’s talk about some ways YOUR organization can Go Green!

Work From Home

If your organization isn’t already working remotely, this is an amazing step in moving toward reducing your carbon footprint. 

Not only is working from home better for the well-being of your employees, but working from home four days a week can reduce personal emissions by 80 percent.

Go Paperless 

Fact: the average U.S. worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper. Yikes. Not only that, but ink and printer cartridges are also disastrous for the environment. 

And while recycling is great for the environment, going paperless allows you to reduce your carbon footprint more easily. 

A good way to begin the process of going paperless is faxing/scanning all necessary documents and transferring them into online files. This will not only make your company more eco-friendly, but also more organized!

Offer Transportation Benefits

Transportation benefits or commuter benefits, are benefits offered by employers to employees who opt to use public transportation rather than driving to work. 

As of 2017, the United States treats commuter benefits as a tax break for either the organization or the individual. For companies still working out of the office, this can be a great way to save your employees money AND help you go green.

Go Off Screen

Working from home but still want to reduce your carbon footprint further? Allowing your employees to go off screen for meetings can reduce emissions by 96 percent according to the Camera Offset Project. You can learn more at the Camera Offset Project website and even grab some Zoom screen avatars to explain why your camera is off. 

At MBE magazine, we’re always looking for ways to make an equitable tomorrow possible for the new and diverse group of entrepreneurs being molded today. But all of our efforts will be for nothing if there’s no Earth in which to do business. 

So let’s work together to hold ourselves and our organizations accountable for how we treat the environment and hopefully, we can all turn just a few shades greener than we were the year before.