In December 2023, CBRE took a look at commercial real estate trends in terms of relocation. The commercial real estate experts looked specifically at Fortune 500 companies for five years. During that time, 30% of them moved to a new location.
- 70% moved to another building in the same city or town.
- 29% purchased neighboring land or buildings for expansion or built onto the existing building.
- 28% moved to a new state.
- 10% purchased land and built a new building.
- 4% moved to a different part of the state.
- 3% moved to a new country.
If you’re planning a business move, make sure sustainability is part of your relocation. From choosing an environmentally-friendly moving company to making sure you recycle unneeded electronics, Put thought into the move. You should plan every step of your relocation with thought for the impact you’ll have on the area you’re leaving and the one you’re moving to.
Consider the Location and Building Features
When you’re planning to move to a new location, consider how you could boost your environmental impact. Location matters, but so does how you get there, and the steps you take getting ready to move.
When you’re looking for a new location, consider the impact your workers will have on the community. They may not want to move, which can increase commute times. Instead of having all of your employees drive to work, could they use public transportation? If you provided free monthly ride passes, they’d be encouraged to use buses or commuter trains. Or, you could offer perks like monthly gas cards for employees who carpool.
Is the area good for alternative energy sources like wind power, geothermal energy, or solar? That’s a good option, but try to make your new offices eco-friendly, too. LED lighting is better than fluorescent light. Bamboo flooring is better as bamboo grows quickly, which avoids deforestation. Low-E windows help with heat transfer. With plenty of windows, employees don’t have to run office lights all day.
A new building should meet LEED specifications as much as possible. Instead of the cheapest toilets and plumbing fixtures you can find, aim for low-flow items. Consider investing in rain barrels that can be used for lawn care. Even better, skip the grass and aim for low-growing plants that require minimal maintenance and help provide bees and other insects with nectar.
If your company has a cafeteria, on-site gardens are helpful. Compostable food scrap can be turned into rich compost for growing some of the food your kitchen serves employees each day. Use the rain barrel water to keep plants watered.
Consider the Move Itself
The goal of green relocation is to move locations with as little impact on the environment as possible. You want to bolster local economies, keep unnecessary costs down, and be sustainable.
Because a business may produce a lot of waste during a move, you want to reuse as much as you can. Instead of buying moving boxes, save up boxes that office supplies come in. After the move, donate them to someone else. That keeps the cardboard out of the waste and recycling stream.
If you’re feeding your moving crews, it can be more sustainable to have individual meals over a catered event where there are a lot of leftovers. If you do go with catering, aim for a company that sources local products and donates as much leftover food as possible to the local food shelf. The use of eco-friendly plates and cutlery is important.
Look for a mover that uses sustainable practices. They may not have EVs yet, but biodegradable or compostable packing materials are far better choices than Styrofoam peanuts. Planning routes and loading trucks to limit time on the road is another good option.
Finally, you need to look at what you’re taking. Reuse as much of your current office furniture as possible. It might be nice to have brand-new items, but what happens to the old items? If you can’t resell them, see if you can donate them. Don’t let them end up in the trash. The same is true of any electronic items, reuse as much as possible, donate what still has value, and responsibly recycle the rest.
Properly Dispose of E-Waste
The move from one location to the next often generates a lot of e-waste. Computers, printers, fax machines, monitors, copiers, and many other items end up in storerooms when they break down or are no longer needed. As you pack up to move to a new location, all of those items don’t need to move with you. You can’t just leave them behind.
E-waste is recycled by breaking down the components. If an item has any value, it can have the data destroyed before it’s refurbished for resale or donation to a worthy cause. If it’s broken beyond repair, the glass, metal, and plastic are sorted and recycled for reuse in new products. Equipment goes through giant shredders that break the materials into small pieces where they can be used as materials to melt down for reuse.
Recycled plastic can be used to make the buttons for a new keyboard or laptop case. Recycled glass is often used with asphalt to make new roads or repair existing ones. You can reuse copper and other metals found in electronics, too.
Tips for Choosing an ITAD Provider
IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) involves reusing and recycling your unnecessary or broken electronics in a secure, responsible manner. When you’re a business, you have to consider the information you handle each day. Your employees’ SSNs, addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth are things you have to keep away from the wrong hands. Customer’s credit card information, contact information, and purchase history are other examples. Choose your provider carefully.
Providers are not always the same as the competition. Look for an ITAD and e-waste provider who ensures eco-friendly practices. Ideally, look for e-Stewards and R2 certifications. Also, see if the company is CO2 neutral. That helps you with an eco-friendly relocation.
When you’re relocating, the security of this information during recycling or moving is critical. You might not even be getting rid of electronics, but you have to decommission your current data center and set up a new one in the new location. That decommissioning must be taken care of with the utmost care. Information needs to be secure during the move. If you are consolidating equipment, you need to assess what to keep and what to go. ERI can help with data center decommissioning and accurate inventories of what you’re disposing of.
What kinds of e-waste can ERI help you responsibly recycle when your business is relocating? The short answer is almost everything. Here’s a short list of things we recycle external hard drives, desktops, laptops, monitors, fax machines, pagers, tablets, printers, copiers, solar panels, batteries, medical equipment, servers, routers, smartphones, self-checkouts, etc.
If it’s electronic, we can recycle it following federal and state guidelines. ERI has locations throughout the U.S., so you’re never out of reach of one of our recycling facilities. If you have items that are still in good shape, we can even help you get the highest possible resale value to have them remarketed. Use that money to pay for your company’s ITAD services.