To kick off our 2 week Go Green Celebration in honor of Earth Day and the Pike-Wayne Earth Day Festival on April 16th, and Arbor Day, April 29th, we’re blogging about our best environmentally friendly ideas in the office and at home, including a composting tutorial, details about our workplace recycling program at the Hawley Silk Mill, and our top Go Green tips for all areas of our lives. Today we’re jumping in with great Earth-friendly practices especially for the work environment to save you (and your boss) a little green of your own.
Every part of the work day offers a chance to help preserve the planet and your wallet. Here are 35 of our favorite ideas for the office or work place.
The Commute
The average employee spends $1700.00/year commuting to work. That’s a chunk of change we’d all like to have back in our pockets. Luckily, no matter where you live, there is a helpful way to get to work. Even if you only do it one day a week, every little bit helps.
1. If you live close enough, try biking or walking to work. Many larger companies offer incentives to bike in, and even have locker rooms for commuters. Lobby your local politicians for better sidewalks and bike lanes.
2. Mass transit is another good option as it takes much less energy and makes much less pollution to transport dozens or even hundreds of people in one vehicle.
3. Even if you live far away from the city, there is always the option of carpooling, even if it is just two employees. Keep clean and check your air filter every month and keep your tires inflated to the recommended level to save about $50 per year. (Check out this MythBusters test to see why the recommended pressure really is the best bet.)
4. Another money saving, energy saving, and time saving option is telecommuting. With options like document sharing and Go To Meeting, working from home is easier and more helpful than ever.
In The Office
Paper
The average office worker used 10,000 sheets (730 lbs.) of paper per year. Producing that much paper requires 14 trees, weighing a total of 2 tons and enough to power a condo for a year (18,000,000 BTU’s). It produces 11,353 gallons of waste water, half a garbage truck full of solid waste (1,181 lbs),and 3,687 lbs of CO2 equivalent as greenhouse gases while decomposing in a landfill, the same as a Harley Davidson motorcycle running for a whole year. Multiply that by the number of workers in your company, let alone in the world. Luckily, saving paper is easier than ever in this techno savvy age.
5. Email important documents and memos, and use online instant messenger programs to alert other to phone messages.
6. Set up an electronic fax that sends you an email of the document that is being faxed to you.
7. Offer email invoicing
8. Offer a small incentive for online or EFT payment to your customers
9. Pay your employees through direct deposit
10. Submit proposals via email and .pdf to potential clients
11. Produce double sided documents
12. Use white boards instead of bulletin boards
13. Reuse manilla folders by relabeling them
14. Reuse multi label interoffice mail envelopes
15. When you do have to print a document, use recycled paper and the econo setting on your printer
16. Buy recycled paper, envelopes, post its and other products
Electronics
Did you know that your computer is still sucking electricity even when you’re not using it? Many appliances and electronics still have an electric flow when turned off.
17. Either unplug these, or use a power strip that you can switch off at the end of the day. There are even smart power strips that can be timed or sense when a piece of equipment has powered down and cut off the flow of electricity.
18. Use a laptop. A typical desktop pc with CRT monitor uses 140-320 watts of electricity, where a laptop uses just 15-45. Laptops have all the computing power of professionally oriented desktop models today. If you really need a larger screen for design work and the like, get your laptop and hook up a larger LCD monitor that will only take 17-31 watts more, and turn it off at night. And remember to recycle or donate your old computers and monitors. Staples and Radioshack both have great recycling options for electronics.
19. Use all in one printers that can fax (electronically) print, copy, and scan. This eliminates several pieces of equipment that could be wasting your power. Also choose Energy Star products that use the least electricity.
20. Do you really need 2 cellphones, and iPod, and a PDA? Condense. There are great products out there that can make calls, surf the web, check email, Tweet, schedule, play music, take pictures and video and more. One device means one battery to charge and fewer pieces to discard. When you’re done with your phone or whatnot, take it to a small electronics recycling collection center such as Staples, Radioshack, or even LockData‘s office in the Hawley Silk Mill.
Office Practices
You can also cut down costs with little changes that really add up.
21. Use recycled paper clips instead of staples, stop using supplies that can’t be recycled like rubber bands.
22. Utilize natural daylight and leave the lights off.
23. Paint the walls a light color to reflect more light to prevent turning on electric bulbs.
24. If you don’t have any windows, switch to CFL’s. They come in a myriad of shapes for all needs, and while the initial cost is a bit higher, they last for literally years without having to be replaced, and they use a fraction of the electricity of incandescent bulbs.
25. In office and at home turn the thermostat down 2 degrees in the winter and up 2 degrees in the summer. The change is slight but can make a big impact on your electric bill.
26. Clean air conditioner filters every 3 months so that your unit isn’t working harder than it has to in order to produce the same temperature.
27. Get an office coffee maker with a metal filter. No waste from paper filters and no spending $5 on a cappuccino everyday.
28. Replace old appliances like mini-fridges, microwaves, air conditioners and more with new Energy Star appliances and receive rebates from the state. In New York, you could get a $105 rebate on a full sized fridge.
29. Use GoToMeeting and like services instead of sending employees to physical meetings off site to save gas and travel time.
30. Open a window! Studies show indoor air to be worse than outdoor air. Ventilation is key, especially if you’re sitting near a Xerox machine. And put a plant on your desk – some are known to act as air filters (aloe vera/ficus for formaldehyde; English ivy for benzene; spider plant for carbon monoxide, and several others). Added benefit- more oxygen in the air makes for more alert and productive employees.
31. Participate in or start an office recycling program for plastics, paper, glass, and metal.
Lunchtime
Eating out everyday is a strain on anyone’s purse and waistline, not to mention the amount of packaging, wrapping, and plastic utensils that end up in the garbage. Bringing your lunch is healthier, more economical, and creates less trash.
32. Get a lunchbox. From plain and professional to Thundercats and Strawberry Shortcake, a meal brought in a reusable lunch box stays better preserved than one in a disposable brown or plastic bag. You get bonus points for using small Tupperware containers or sandwich keepers instead of baggies.
33. Eat locally grown foods. It saves you money, brings fresher product to your lunch, and saves the pollution, oil, and gas needed to ship in food from far away.
34. Bring in reusable mugs/plates/silverware for the office. Get them from the secondhand store. LockData has real plates (that don’t melt in the microwave like takeout containers) and the whole deal for every employee that we got at the Cat’s Pajama’s resale store for $5.00 total. That’s right. Five bucks. AND we helped some animals in need as well as ourselves and our planet.
35. Skip the bottled water. Over 40 billion water bottles end up in landfills each year. Bottled water costs about 10 bucks a gallon when bought in single serving bottles. Tap water costs 1 cent per gallon. And studies find that almost 1/3 of bottled water comes from regular old taps anyway. Fill aluminum bottle from a tap with a purifier on it. You’ll save money, health risks, and landfill space.
Bonus Money Saving Technique:
Well, money-having technique. Talk to your boss about these great ideas as ways for the company to save money and welcome your new raise come rolling in!
Do what you can. If you feel overwhelmed by all these options, start with one or two and go from there. Every little bit helps. And when being green helps you directly, why wouldn’t you want to? Check back soon for more Earth-friendly articles for our LockData Go Green Celebration!
