How Blueground & Our Guests Promote Sustainability
See how we’re reducing our footprint and ways you can help
3 Min Read
3 Min ReadWe know that sustainability matters to our guests — and it’s important to us, too! Whether you’re staying in one of Blueground’s turnkey apartments for a month, a year, or longer, our homes are designed to help you maintain eco-conscious habits (and build new ones). Keep reading to see how we’re reducing our footprint and to discover some easy, practical ways you can help.
What’s Blueground doing?
Since being founded in 2013, Blueground has taken steps toward environmental sustainability. Now, we’re establishing ourselves as an eco-conscious leader in the proptech space with the help of Iman Fardghassemi, our Sustainability Manager. Check out these green practices we’re currently carrying out:
💙 Following our internal energy efficiency policy
- We’re practicing what we preach by training BeeGees (Blueground employees) and our cleaning crews to be energy efficient. This includes switching off lights and devices when not in use and using natural light as much as possible.
💡 Using LED lightbulbs
- Energy.gov explains that “Residential LEDs, especially Energy Star-rated products, use at least 75% less energy, and last up to 25 times longer, than incandescent lighting.”
🏠 Providing sustainable home goods
- Blueground guests in the US are greeted at their new home with a box of sustainable essentials from Public Goods — trash bags, hand soap, coffee, and more.
☀️ Starting renewable energy projects
- In Chicago, we’ve allocated over 300,000 kWh of electricity to community solar energy. Plus, we’ve sourced 858,000 kWh of electricity with renewable energy sources in Boston.
🚗 Reducing daily travel of field employees
- “This ensures that our employees aren’t driving back and forth across the city burning unnecessary emissions,” said Fardghassemi.
While we plan to lessen our environmental impact further and have more exciting things planned for the near future, our current initiatives are already getting noticed. In fact, Blueground was shortlisted for the Best Sustainability Initiative at this year’s Altos Awards.
What can you do?
Taking small, eco-friendly steps can have numerous benefits for you — from improving your mood to sometimes even saving you money. Not to mention that you’ll be helping our planet, looking out for future generations, and prolonging the life of goods. Here are some ways you can have a positive impact while staying in your Blueground home (or anywhere else):
How we help minimize furniture waste
Furniture waste is a big problem in the US and around the world. The US EPA reported that over 80% of furniture waste was landfilled in 2018. Part of the problem is fast furniture made from low-quality materials. Since the price of fast furniture is so low, it can often be too expensive and time consuming, compared to the value of the furniture, to fix, sell, or even donate the used items. As a result, a large majority of fast furniture ends up in landfills after just a couple of years, while most higher quality furniture pieces have expected life spans of 5 to 7 years.
Blueground’s business model naturally helps many of its guest’s reduce furniture waste. We also largely own and source the high-quality furniture in our apartments. And we’ve continually looked to replace furniture pieces that break down quickly and frequently to maximize the lifespan of the furniture in our homes.
Rather than buying fast furniture that would end up in landfills after a year of use, Blueground provides a less wasteful alternative to our guests.
While we regularly clean and maintain our furniture to extend its lifespan, we rely on our guests to play a part in minimizing furniture waste. That’s why we want to ask our guests to be our allies in taking care of our furniture in the name of sustainability. Cleaning your furniture regularly seems simple, but it can help us make a small, eco-conscious difference over multiple years.
Together, we can make a difference!
Already a Blueground guest? Thinking about staying in one of our fully furnished apartments around the world?
As a global company, we want to do our part and hope that you’ll try out some of these sustainable ideas as well.
Learn more about our modern living experience here.
