How ‘Green’ is Your Office?

It is Energy Saving Week right now, so check out this article from Sadie Knight of Glassraven Web Design about easy ways to make your office more environmentally friendly.

Many of us have already adopted a greener lifestyle at home, but we can easily extend this by going green at work too.

Whether your business is home based, in your own premesis or part of a corporate complex there are many ways you can reduce your business’ impact on the environment. Here we look at 4 areas that can be tackled by any business.

Use the off switch

The printer doesn’t need to be on all day if you only use it once or twice. Turn it on when its needed.

Computer screens use a significant amount of the power of your computer! Turning them off takes no time at all, even if its only for 5 minutes here and there, think of the energy you will save over the course of the day.

Did you know… Many computers give you the option to automatically turn off your screen instead of using a screen saver? Check your settings.

Turn off computers & lights when you leave the office for the day. This simple act can save huge amounts of electricity over the course of the year, reducing your bills & energy used!

Paper: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Reducing your paper usage can be quite simple:

Think before you print. Do you need to print off all of your invoices and receipts? In the majority of cases an electronic copy will be quite sufficient – you can always print at a later date if needed.

Eco Tip… When printing information from websites look first to see if there is a printer friendly copy. If not select the text you need and print selection – you will save both paper and ink!

Do your customers require both a packing slip and an invoice?

Avoid printing documents that could just as easily be emailed. We provide all quotes, invoices and receipts in PDF format – reducing our paper usage significantly.

Reuse where possible:

If its for internal use only can you print / write on the back of something you no longer need?

Reuse packaging materials. This is becoming a more regular occurrence and your customers will not think less of your business is if doesnt come in shiny branded plastic packaging. Encourage them to reuse / recycle it when they receive it.

If you can no longer use it, recycle it!

Did you know… Recycled paper uses up to 50% less energy and 90% less water than virgin paperstock!

Equally important here is using recycled paper wherever possbile. All the paper in the Glassraven office is recycled, and all our printing is on FSC certified / recycled paperstock.

Use companies with environmental accreditation

Support companies that are already doing their bit for the environment.

Recommendation: Here at Glassraven we use alocalprinter.com for our printing. They are an approved FSC printing company, all the paper they use is FSC certified or 100% recycled, and they have excellent green credentials.

Look at switching to green energy suppliers, who supply electricity derived from renewable power sources such as solar and wind.

There are many companies online specialising in green office supplies, from recycled stationery to fairtrade tea & coffee and environmentally friendly cleaning products such as Ecover.

Small changes make big differences

Next time you have a tea break make sure you only fill it with the amount of water you will use.

If you are running a home based business – do you need to heat the whole house? Only heat the rooms that are being used.

Did you know… Turning down the heating by 1 degree can reduce heating bills by 10% cutting down on energy usage!

Add some plants to the office. House plants are great at ridding the air of pollutants and increase the oxygen levels, plus they look good! Rubber plants and spider plants are particularly low maintenance and effective.

About the Author

This article is part of a series written by Sadie Knight of Glassraven web design, Coventry. The full series of articles is available on the Glassraven website.

Glassraven, established in February 2002, are specialists in web design, ecommerce web design and bespoke web development.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 am and is filed under Mum's Home Office, eco mums. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.