5 Ideas to Celebrate Earth Day At Work

Earth Day is this Sunday, April 22nd.  Although Earth Day lands on a weekend this year, there's no reason not to celebrate it all workweek long!  Here are 5 ideas to help you celebrate Earth Day at your company this upcoming week.

1.  Start Green Initiatives
If you currently don't have any initiatives in place to promote a more eco-friendly office, now is the perfect time to get started!

• Consider going paperless.  Many offices are now scanning and storing files to the cloud.  While you may not be able to go 100% paperless, work to cut down as much as possible.
• Replace your standard or incandescent light bulbs to energy efficient bulbs.
• Dispose of the disposable.  This means no disposable plate or utensils.  Ask employees to bing in their own reusable plates and silverware - or check out our selection of porcelain plates, stainless steel cutlery and glasses. 
• Set up recycling stations. Many office have a few recycle bins hiding around the building, but employees might not use them.  Use this week to educate your employees about the importance of recycling and set up more stations that are visible to employees.  Need new recycling bins?  Twist has you covered!

2.  Start A Company Garden
While no one has a good count on the number of gardens planted next to employer parking lots and in corners of office parks in the last couple of years, growth has been fueled largely by growing interest in employee wellness and an effort to give workers a low-cost benefit A company garden can be a fun way to get employees outside and help relieve some stress. It's also a great way to get some exercise. ​ Create a competition between employees or departments by creating "Adopt-a-spot" area.  These areas may include flowers as well as produce and herbs to beautify the outside of your office.

3.  Add Plants in the Office
Plants are more than just beautiful decor.  In fact, studies have shown they help reduce stress, enhance employee attitudes, increase productivity, and improve air quality. Spaces can be transformed without spending a lot of money by just adding a few plants here and there. The space becomes more welcoming and beautiful with the addition of plants. Variety of foliage, colour and shape of leaves also add drama to the surroundings.”

4.  Do Some Outdoor Cleanup
Chances are, your office probably has a bit of litter in the parking lot, walkways, or other outdoor areas.  Assemble a team of volunteers to help clean up the trash around the building for 10-15 minutes each day of the week. It's an easy way to help employees spend some time outside, not to mention how much better you will feel when you don't see the garbage!

5.  Start A Wellness Challenge.
Use Earth Day to launch a new wellness challenge.  Reward employees who participate and complete these challenges.
Some of our favorite ideas;

• Drink More Water Challenge  We all know drinking enough water is important, but sometimes it’s hard to make a habit of hydration. As an employer, you can help your team members by making sure access to clean water is available throughout your office, give away reusable water bottles to new hires, and host a water-drinking challenge. Invite employees to track how much water they drink in a day, and reward those who get more than 8-glasses in. Alternatively, ask employees to replace one glass of juice or pop per day with a glass of water.  An obvious reward for this challenge is a nice water bottle—although you may want to give it away in the beginning so team members have something to drink out of.
• Workout Challenge Exercise is an important part of any healthy lifestyle. But with busy schedules, balancing family needs with hobbies and work, it can be hard to find time to hit the gym. Make sure you give employees the time they need to exercise, even if that means offering a more flexible schedule. You can also offer subsidised fitness passes or invite personal trainers and coaches to create workouts for employees.
• Pack Your Lunch  Eating out is not only more expensive than making meals at home, it can also be costly to your health. Restaurants tend to use more salt and sugar when cooking, and it can be hard to find healthy choices on the average menu. Challenge team members to pack their own lunches instead of eating out. Let them choose the number of restaurant meals they’d like to replace with homemade ones, but a realistic suggestion is four days per week. That leaves one lunch open for “cheat days” or lunch meetings. For a further incentive, reward employees who stick to their goals with a gift card at the local organic grocer or a book of healthy, easy lunch recipes.
• 10,000 Steps Challenge The Center for Disease Control recommends 150 minutes of exercise per week, which equates to about 30 minutes per day. According to the FitBit blog: “Fitbit starts everyone off with a 10,000-step goal, and here’s why: It adds up to about five miles each day for most people, which includes about 30 minutes of daily exercise.” The health benefits? “Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that 30 minutes of walking each day cut stroke risk by a minimum of 20%.” Pedometers are relatively cheap to acquire. Try giving one to each employee, and rewarding all employees who get over 10,000 steps per day for a full month. Grand prize goes to the team member who walks the most.
• Smoking Cessation Challenge You don’t need me to tell you how many health risks are associated with smoking. But as one of the most addictive substances on the planet, cigarettes are a hard habit to shake. Aid those employees looking to quit with a challenge. The reward for this one can be sizeable but broken up into constituent parts, because most people don’t quit cold turkey.​ Reward employees who make it to one month, three months, six months, and one year without smoking with increasingly large rewards. For this challenge, make sure they have the resources they need and even invite them to bring their family members in on the challenge. For example, if someone’s spouse smokes, ask them to share in the challenge as well. We’re more likely to shake bad habits if we eliminate the impulses from our surroundings.