Earth Day 2020 - how your business can help the planet?

Earth Day is a great opportunity to engage your employees in pro-environmental actions and inspire them to change their habits. It’s also a chance for your employees to get to know each other, spend good time together and help to save the planet, all at the same time!

Maybe this day we will find out that the Earth is our only home and we need to start protecting it? The Earth is going through a lot of troubles right now and begs for our help. Let’s begin with small changes, start caring for our closest neighborhoods, showing the way to follow in the journey towards a healthier environment!

Are you looking for ideas on how to organize Earth Day in your company? Here you can find a list of solutions for engaging the employees in the Earth Day celebration:

1. Plant trees in your city

Organizing a tree planting event is a great solution for companies that want to engage their employees in bigger eco projects. It’s a huge satisfaction for employees to see the actual results of their work and their true impact on the landscape improvement in the neighborhood. The action itself brings a lot of fun and it’s a good way to bring people closer to each other. The best time to plant trees is during autumn, so on Earth Day you can vote together with your employees and choose the place where you want to plant the trees.

2. Organize Vegetarian Day

How is the meat connected to environmental issues? Unfortunately, these two things have a lot in common. Agriculture is accountable for around 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world. It’s largely due to the methane produced by one and a half billion cows inhabiting the planet. Methane is more than twenty times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide in the context of global warming and the retention of solar energy. It is estimated that one cow - depending on its size and what it eats, produces 100 to 300 liters of methane per day.

Organize Vegetarian Day in your office and show that vegetarian food is not only healthy, ecological, but also very delicious! You can choose from multiple catering options or encourage our employees to prepare the dishes by themselves. Want to surprise your employees? Organize vegetarian sushi during lunch, which will certainly impress many people with its yummy taste.

3. Bike to Work Day

Reward those employees who will cycle to work during Earth Day. Prepare small gifts related to the company or ecological gadgets for them. Earth Day can also be the first day of a larger competition that will motivate employees to choose cycling as their everyday option. You can easily organize such a competition with Activy. 

Activy is a well-being tool, which helps employers to create happier and healthier working places trough company cycling & running challenges. By using a mobile game and a science-based method of gamification Activy supports employees in building healthy habits while having fun.

4. Organize clothes SWAP event

The swap action is an event where people get together to exchange clothing, accessories and other articles in order to give it a new life with someone else – and then gaining some great new stuff for themselves, too. Let employees bring to the office things that they do not use and which could be useful to other people. Instead of buying more gifts, they can exchange items they already have. The whole event organized in the spirit of zero waste will be an interesting experience for employees, and will also allow them to get to know each other. Remember that the most sustainable item is the one we already own!

5. Clean up your closest environment

It’s a very simple solution, yet very effective one! Cleaning up the local park, removing garbage from a nearby forest or cleaning a town square will give us a lot of satisfaction because the results will be visible instantly! Going out and spending some time outdoors will be a perfect change to a daily routine. It will allow us to breathe in and relax while doing something good at the same time.

6. Raise funds for environmental charity

There are many pro-ecological foundations that need our support to continue doing their business. During Earth Day, your company can organize a charity fundraising aiming to support selected organizations. As a company, you can announce that you will double the sum collected to further motivate employees to contribute. Let your employees decide what they want to spend the collected money on - you can choose a larger international organization such as Greenpeace and WWF or find some local charities in your area. 

7. Organize ecological workshop

Many products that we use on a daily basis can be easily done by hand at home. Organize a workshop for your employees during which you will together learn how to prepare homemade cosmetics. Handmade deodorant prepared from natural ingredients is as efficient as the one bought at a store. Same as homemade cleaners and detergents, which are very effective in removing dirt, and in addition are harmless to household members. 

The list of products that are very easy to create in-home conditions will surely surprise many of us: scrubs, masks, and shampoos. Such workshops are a huge dose of knowledge, but also great fun!

8. Introduce one significant change in your office

This could be the day when recycling bins or a water dispenser will finally appear in your office. On the occasion of Earth Day, you can also put a bicycle parking in front of the office or invest in energy-saving light bulbs that not only environmental-friendly but are also much better for our eyesight. If you still use plastic cutlery, cups or straws - this is the day to give them up and offer employees better, ecological options. These ideas are endless, and we know that it’s not possible to introduce everything at once, so let's start with one change!

These are just a few suggestions from the entire list of pro-ecological changes that you can implement in your business. Even the smallest step can contribute to great changes in the future. Let's take care of the planet together, starting from our closest environment!