What is your funeral home’s ecological footprint?

According to WWF Global, your ecological footprint is “the amount of environment necessary to produce the goods and services necessary to support a particular lifestyle.”

By making small changes to your funeral home’s facility, you can reduce your ecological footprint. Even the smallest acts can add up to make a big difference.

Below are some ways your funeral home can be more environmentally-friendly. Don’t feel like you have to make all these changes at once; just choose a couple of options to start that make sense for your funeral home.

Goodbye Plastic

One of the easiest ways to be more environmentally-friendly is to reduce plastic use when possible. For example, instead of offering your families plastic water bottles and coffee cups, have glasses and mugs for them to use. While you’re at it, ditch those plastic straws and invest in reusable straws. You also can place clearly marked recycling bins throughout your funeral home’s facility.

Less Is More

Finding small ways to save energy makes a major difference in the long-run. For example, you can use fluorescent light bulbs throughout your funeral home’s lobby and facility. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, fluorescent light bulbs use 75% less energy than incandescent light bulbs. Don’t forget to turn off lights in your office, conference room, and other places when they’re unoccupied.

Let It Grow

Your staff can use your green thumbs to plant trees and other greenery around your facility. As a bonus, it’s also an easy way to update your facility and engage with your community. Updating the landscaping outside your facility can help make a good lasting impression on families who come to your funeral home. You also can make the tree planting a community-wide event to get to know your community members.

Embrace Technology

Taking advantage of the technology and resources at your fingertips can help you run a greener facility. You can start by printing less things on paper and saving more files digitally. Check out this article for tips on how to organize your digital files.

You also can consider going paperless with your billing. It’s greener — and not to mention much easier and convenient — to pay your funeral home’s bills online rather than in print mail.

Educate Your Community

Your funeral home’s staff can help educate your community by joining or starting an environmental group. You can organize community events such as planting trees and finding guest speakers to speak to your community about how to be greener.