Quick Wins for a More Sustainable Office 

by Beth Salt | Sep 16, 2025 | LSA Insights, Small business Hub

Quick Wins for a More Sustainable Office

There are many quick and easy ways you can reduce your environmental impact and save money.

How to get started

If the number of options below feels overwhelming, start with a simple, three-step process: 

1. Measure your footprint: Use the LSA’s Carbon Calculator to calculate your baseline energy use, waste, and emissions.
2. Focus on high-impact areas: Target the biggest sources of waste or emissions revealed by your audit to achieve the most significant results. 
3. Start small and build momentum: Implement one or two quick wins. As you see the benefits, you can expand your efforts and tackle bigger goals over time. 

Recycling/ Resource Use

• Provide glasses and mugs rather than disposable cups
• Limit use of disposable goods e.g. pens, in favour of reusable ones 
• Make it easy for staff to recycle as much as possible; paper, card, glass, plastic, aluminium, batteries, old phones
• Take away individual waste bins from desks and replace them with recycling bins 
• Compost food waste 
• Lengthen the life of toner cartridges by adjusting printer settings to draft quality – and black and white  
• Recycle used toner cartridges 
• Recycle old computer equipment by giving it to local charities or community groups 
• At Christmas, make a donation to charity rather than sending cards 
• Use environmentally friendly cleaning products 
• Give an active preference to products with minimal packaging and that are locally sourced 
• Discourage excessive ordering of stationery by installing a central ordering system 
• Use local suppliers/caterers where possible 
• Maximise savings by putting up signage reminding staff to save energy and reduce waste 
• Fix dripping taps

Paper Use

• Only print when necessary 
• Save paper costs by buying 100% recycled paper and reusing discarded paper for notes
• Default printers to print double-sided 
• Print internal documents in size 11 font and reduce the borders to 1.5cm
• Inform staff whether agendas and minutes will or won’t be available at meetings to avoid duplication of printing 
• Send internal memos electronically 
• Use ‘track changes’ to review documents rather than printing
• Cancel junk mail and unwanted publications 
• Re-use bubble wrap, boxes and padded envelopes where possible
• Collect and re-use name badges after events and meetings where possible 

Energy Use

• Minimise energy costs by ensuring that all equipment and lights are turned off (i.e. not left on standby) when not in use 
• Install movement sensors to meeting rooms. Encourage staff to switch off light switches by labelling light switches to indicate which area of the office they light. Ask security to check all lights are switched off once the building is empty 
• Encourage staff to switch off monitors when away from their desks for more than 5 – 10 minutes and to shut computers down when they leave the office. 
• Make sure everyone has a way to turn down the heating, rather than opening a window, to cool the office 
• Check that heating is not timed to come on overnight or at weekends 
• Turning the heating down by one degree saves 8% of the energy bill a year. The Environment Agency recommends 19 degrees C in the winter and 23 degrees C in the summer is comfortable for most staff
• If extra heating is needed, use oil-fuelled rather than electric fan heaters. They use 750W of energy as opposed to 3kW
• Ensure all light bulbs are energy efficient – LEDs are more efficient than halogen 
• Ensure air conditioning vents or heating units are not blocked by office furniture/boxes 
• Switch your electricity supplier to a green tariff. Many suppliers will assist in monitoring energy use and promoting reduction 

Transport use

• Save time, inconvenience and pollution by using conference calls rather than travelling to meetings where possible 
• Provide interest-free season ticket loans 
• Use cycle couriers where possible 
• Use LPG and/or carbon neutral taxi companies and encourage use of public transport whenever possible by making this easier to book through a central system 
• Encourage staff to cycle to work by installing secure bike racks, shower facilities and offering cycle mileage allowance 
• Introduce travel policies that reward car sharing 

Sustainability for Small Businesses

by Beth Salt | Sep 15, 2025 | LSA Insights, Small business Hub

Sustainability for Small Businesses

By Jim Haywood, Managing Director, Woodman Farrow Ltd.

Running a small business in today’s competitive marketplace is a constant challenge.  Bills need to be paid and books need to be balanced whilst remaining profitable.  Small law firms face many demands on often limited resources – including the time and expertise of colleagues and, of course, finances.  When setting out priorities and budget planning, it may be tempting to reduce the focus on sustainability (in all its guises), or even ignore it altogether.  Some small businesses may see it as an irrelevance and something that only the bigger players in the market need to worry about.  After all, it’s just about compliance with environmental legislation, isn’t it?  An understandable view but one missing the opportunities and benefits that sustainability offers firms of all sizes.

Of course, it’s a given that we all must comply with relevant environmental laws – for example, when dealing with waste, discharging anything to watercourses, or in demonstrating the energy efficiency of the business (e.g. via the UK’s Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting requirement).  But being a sustainable business (and demonstrating that you are) is about much more than staying on the right side of the law.  It can give your business a critical edge over your competitors as well as putting you in a good position to be a key part of the supply chain of larger companies.  It can make you more attractive to lenders and investors and help you recruit and retain committed and engaged staff.  Being sustainable can ultimately save you money and improve your bottom line.

The sustainability landscape is changing quickly:

• Around two thirds of investors now take sustainability performance into account[i] – a significant increase in the past few years. They often need to see hard evidence, such as a demonstration that your business meets a standard like the new VSME, the voluntary sustainability reporting standard for SMEs (see below).  There is compelling evidence[ii] that companies with top ESG ratings are able to obtain financing on the capital market at significantly lower rates on average (average interest rate ~6.8 %a.) than ESG laggards (7.9 %)
• Companies with a strongly embedded sustainability culture and who ‘walk the talk’ score up to 70% higher on employee engagement than competitors who take the issue less seriously[iii]. They also retain 93% of their employees[iv]
• 80% of Gen Y/Z now expect companies to actively protect the environment[v]. Those who clearly do not can suffer serious consumer backlash.  (Just think of the bad press and reputational damage suffered by fast fashion brands such as Boohoo)
• Sustainable products are in increasingly high demand from customers. (For example, Unilever’s purpose-led ‘Sustainable Living’ brands grew 69% faster than the rest of their portfolio in 2019)[vi].  Thinking and acting sustainably can open market opportunities (with both end consumers and B2B customers).  This also helps promote innovation and efficiency, particularly for nimble and proactive small firms
• As energy prices increase (and security of supply becomes more uncertain), cutting energy through efficiencies and thoughtful use of power not only helps to reduce a dependence on grid supplied electricity but also helps cut carbon as well as saving money. It is estimated that the average SME could reduce energy bills by 18-25% by making energy improvements[vii] (such as installing solar panels with battery storage, changing out old lighting for LEDs, draught-proofing windows and doors, replacing old heating systems with more sustainable options (e.g. Air Source Heat Pumps), etc.)

Small law firms who respond positively and seize the many opportunities presented by embedding sustainability into their organisation are more likely to be the survivors in the competitive marketplace.  Despite the possible up-front costs (for example, installing more energy-efficient equipment), becoming a sustainable business is a win-win situation.  Experience shows that the ROI on expenditure which improves the sustainability of the business is worth the investment, particularly given the wider business benefits.  (For example, there is usually a 4-5 year payback on the average solar panel installation (30kWp) for SMEs)[viii].

Finally, don’t forget the opportunity to highlight your own business’s commitment and progress with becoming a sustainable firm. If your firm has fewer than 250 employees,  the newly introduced voluntary sustainability reporting standard (VSME) for non-listed SMEs requires a company to provide relevant information about its impacts on people and the environment, and the effects of environmental and social issues on its financial position, performance and cash flows in the short, medium, or long term.  The standard is likely to attract the attention of B2B customers, lenders and other key stakeholders.  They will be looking to see who adopts it; meeting the requirements is likely to become an expectation for doing business in the supply chain.

Not engaging with sustainability could leave you out in the cold.  Not embedding it into all aspects of your business could, quite simply, put you out of business.

——

[i] Cse-net.org

[ii] MSCI

[iii] Gallup

[iv] WeSpire

[v] psico-smart.com

[vi] Unilever

[vii] UK Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC)

[viii] heatable.co.uk