CREcycle: Changing Habits
Our passion and focus is CRE tenant representation and the markets in which they are housed, but today we digress for a moment. In May we introduced CREcycle as our initiative to reduce CRE landfill from the office sector one tonne at a time.
Progress has been slow as allocating the extra time to a new passion is difficult, but we are eager to start. Realistically, after our initial exploration we’ve realised we should temper our enthusiasm and learn one thing at a time. Like commercial real estate, recycling is a high investment slow-moving beast.
So far, we have worked on branding for our new initiative and have started down a path of educating ourselves through courses and industry events.
We are looking at ways to change our business practices to align with this initiative – starting with business cards. After many years of being a business card proponent, we are converting to a digital NFC business card. While adapting to this change is a challenge, in the long run we will save approximately 225 grams of landfill per box of 250 cards. This assumes that half the cards we hand out end up in landfill and the other half are put in the recycling bin.
More importantly, there is so much recycling going on, more than anticipated. Companies such as Cleanaway and Visy are doing major things in this sector. Huge effort and investment are going into major recycling hubs and processes, but it is a slow burn.
However, one thing that has struck us. Not all the waste in recycling bins is recycled. This makes little sense however the process to recycle is a lot more intricate than perceived. It is not like establishing a solar farm; set and forget but maintain when required.
As for the CRE office sector, the one thing we continue to hear is that businesses will need to educate themselves and update their practices, or get left behind. Landlords and tenants are working towards doing the right thing, but much more can be recycled to reduce CRE office landfill one tonne at a time.
It’s a slow start, but we are investigating where we can add value and how best to contribute to a solution.
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