6 Ways to Improve Storage Facility Environmental Impact
Today industry leaders and governments all over the world are taking drastic measures to make our industries and economies more sustainable. To market a self storage business like any other won’t generate much traction today.
However, there is good news. Today consumers are very aware of businesses impacting local environments. If you are building a new self storage business or are looking at boosting revenue for an existing one, it is a fantastic idea to implement green measures and highlight the same in your marketing messages.
In this post we look at 6 easy ways to turn your storage facility green and reduce its carbon impact on the local environment.
#1 Remodel your facility through a LEED certified contractor
If your storage facility is aged or if you are planning for an extension, then we suggest you to work with a LEED certified contractor to remodel your facility. Older the facility, you get to implement more green measures.
Why would you need to work with a LEED certified contractor? What is LEED by the way? LEED = Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. This was created with a set of highly sustainable standards for the construction industry. Buildings under LEED certification are designed to be remarkably energy efficient, they use low energy lighting and cooling systems. The buildings are equipped with superior indoor air quality. Measures are also taken to recycle water. Mainly, the buildings are built using sustainable materials.
LEED certified buildings are rated on a scale of Silver, Gold, and Platinum. This is purely based on the efficiency of energy consumption. All LEED certified buildings are more sustainable and affordable to maintain on a monthly basis. This is the crux of driving sustainable construction. All fittings inside, right from lighting to cooling systems are highly energy efficient.
Here’s a detailed guide to help you choose the best self storage software
#2 Go completely paperless
Self storage businesses need a lot of paperwork to be drawn with tenants to sign contract agreements. This usage of paper can be eradicated by implementing a paper-free software application to run your business. This way, you get to sign agreements and let tenants pay and renew for storage spaces online. Especially through mobile devices.
Self storage software also makes it easy to manage multiple storage facilities on a single dashboard screen. The best aspect of running a completely paperless storage business is that you reduce expenses on printer paper, toners, ink and printers themselves.
#3 Add minimalistic landscaping to your facility
As a storage business owner, it is given that you would put every square foot of space to maximize your revenue by building as many storage spaces as possible. However, adding minimalistic landscaping to your facility makes your storage space easy on the eye.
You should also pay attention to erosion. Chemicals used to clean you storage facility, rainwater and snow cleared off your landscape might affect neighboring properties. Erosion control landscaping such as rip-rap (large rocks used to armor shorelines against heavy water or ice erosion), transition mats, and hedges can help protect neighboring properties, streambeds, bridges, pilings, and roads against becoming supersaturated and damaged from water erosion.
#4 Provide recycling boxes to your tenants
As a storage space business, signing contracts with vendors who supply sustainable packing materials would do your business a lot of good. If you offer locks, boxes and other moving equipment, choose to sell eco-friendly, recycled materials. Eco-friendly products come with a premium price, you can charge extra for selling environment friendly products. Your customers wouldn’t flinch to contribute to a sustainable transaction.
There are certain items like packing peanuts, bubble wrap, styrofoam products and other plastic materials used for thorough packing. Choose biodegradable products which are safe and which don’t breakdown or ware off easily. Most of today’s city landfills are full of chemical laden products. By offering safe, biodegradable packing materials, you make your business more sustainable.
#5 Install solar panels
Cost of solar energy generation has gone down severly for the past decade. Consider installing solar panels on your facilities roof top and parking areas. The upfront cost to overturn energy generation cost might be high, but you will generate savings on energy bills in the long run.
#6 Retrofit property lighting
To put it simply, replace all old lighting with energy efficient LED lights. Not only they consume less energy to output bring lighting, they also last for a very long time when compared to regular CFL alternatives.
You can also go one step ahead and install a motion sensor – which detects people movement and turn lights on and switches lights off when no ones around. This is a very efficient way of saving energy. And these sensors won’t cost much, just Google ‘light sensors’ and you get a ton of products which are cost effective.
How to manage your storage business seamlessly
One place to start with managing a self storage business is the web and mobile platforms. In today’s world, most transactions are dealt online and this holds true while booking and renewing self storage spaces in large cities as well.
The perfect platform for people to book and pay for living spaces has been Airbnb, for a long time. In fact Airbnb might be the only platform which has such an expansive reach, delivering seamless and safe transactions worldwide.
The same platform can be applied to storage businesses as well. The perfect solution is an Airbnb clone script, modified to suit the requirements of the self storage industry.
The best software to manage your self storage business
We have worked with many businesses in the self storage industry. We have done extensive research and ended up creating RentStorage. RentStorage is a versatile platform designed perfectly for self storage businesses.
Either you manage a small lot or multi-facility lots, RentStorage will help you manage all inventories on one dashboard. Making it easy for you to see what’s vacant, and what isn’t. Allow your users to book their slots and pay online, without you having to move a muscle.
There is so much more to RentStorage, check out this link to review all the features of the platform. You can also view the LIVE DEMO or download a LITE VERSION for free, to experience the platform on both mobile and web – before you even think of buying this platform.
