Whether you hate it or love it most of us will spend at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at work. With so much time spent at the office it is very important to implement earth saving strategies here. With many of us making changes at home to lead a more environmentally conscious lifestyle, it’s time to turn our offices ‘green’.
1. Use technology to cut back on paper
Most medium to large companies rely on email for official communication,
yet many employees needlessly print out thousands of memos and company
newsletters a month. Convince your boss or fellow employees to commit to
email communication – not only does this save ink and paper costs, it’s
also faster to distribute.
Cut down on your personnel paper use by using your email program’s file folders to save important documents, a personal internal network folder and regularly do back-ups. If you regularly backup there is little risk you will lose important documents.
2. Recycled paper
Some documents just have to be printed and photocopied, in this case
look into purchasing recycled paper. The best kind is 100 percent
recycled with little or no chlorine bleach used. Most recycled paper is
less expensive than virgin paper and easy to find.
You can also save on paper by encouraging your colleagues to do double-sided printing and photocopying.
3. Turn off
You can save plenty of electricity by turning off your computer when you
leave for lunch, long meetings or for the night. Doing so can save
reduce the energy used by computers up to 50 percent.
4. Let there be light -- naturally
Too many offices opt to close their blinds and switch on the
unnatural fluorescent lights. There is no reason for this! If you can,
roll up those blinds and offer your office as much natural, feel-good
light as you can. Natural sunlight has been seen to decrease stress and
depression, which translates to happier workers. In areas you can’t use
natural sunlight, turn off the lights when no one is in the room or
office space. Switch to enviro-friendly light bulbs and encourage your
office to recycle their fluorescents.
5. Greener coffee breaks
Stop using non-recyclable Styrofoam coffee cups that pose a threat to
the environment as well as animals that often swallow the foam. Save
money by getting your company to invest in several dozen coffee mugs (or
bring your own). Invest in some green dish detergent for washing up
those mugs.
6. Not just for home
Arrange for recycle canisters to be placed in the office kitchen, or
common area where employees eat lunch and snacks. Many of us like to
read newspapers and magazines with our meals and when we’re done we can
simply toss them in the recycling containers, same goes for the coke
cans.
7. No more brown paper bags
If you bring your own lunches, consider using a reusable shopping bag,
lunch bags such as those sold by Woolworths or invest in an organic
material lunch carrier.
Source: www.thepropertymag.co.za
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