Ways To Be More Eco-Friendly in the Construction Industry

You may want to make your construction company greener due to a personal choice or to remain compliant with government regulations. Regardless, shifting practices can be quite a challenge. It’s not like you can simply stop using wood or not turn on your vehicles to help the environment. That’s why we’ve put together a list of ways to be more eco-friendly in the construction industry without negatively affecting your company’s daily output.

Use More Sustainable Materials

Just because you must use an abundance of wood for the foundation of a house doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to use more sustainable materials in other parts of the building. Insulation, paint, and adhesives all have eco-friendly options that your company can use to do its part for the environment. Plus, switching to more sustainable materials will be good for your workers since they’ll with less toxicity in their environment.

Recycle Whenever Possible

You can’t make all the materials you use safer for the environment. However, you can make efforts to reduce the waste that you create. You can reuse broken-up wood and drywall to make a new aggregate material and repurpose old flooring and carpets. On top of that, any materials that you can recycle instead of throwing away can be a big help.

Utilize Solar and Wind Power

You use lots of electricity every day on a construction site. Imagine if you used solar and wind power to supplement that usage. You would not only help your company be more environmentally conscious, but you would help save some money on electrical costs as well.

Why not share these benefits with everyone, though? You could implement a program for your clients in which you install either solar panels or wind turbines on their homes to help them be just as green as you are without having them worry about installing everything themselves.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

As a final tip in this list of ways to be more eco-friendly in the construction industry, we’re going to suggest that you try to reduce your company’s overall carbon footprint. A great way to do this is to install emissions reduction systems into your company’s vehicles. There are quite a few options for this, but no matter which one you choose, you’ll be able to rest easy knowing that you’re producing far fewer carbon emissions.

Of course, the downside is that you can only do this for your own company. You likely work with tons of other companies that use vehicles that you can’t change. However, you can limit your business to either working with companies that also make efforts to be environmentally friendly or local ones. That way, you contribute fewer emissions than if you order supplies from overseas companies or ones that simply don’t care.