Don't leave your values at the doorstep!
At home, Australians are great recyclers. Planet Ark is calling on people to take their green habits to work.
As well as recycling toner and ink cartridges and other imaging consumables, you can do a range of things to 'green-up' your workplace and improve your office's environmental performance.
Here is a selection of tips extracted from The Green Office chapter of the book Greeniology, written by Planet Ark's Tanya Ha.
- Paper represents more than 70% of the waste produced by offices. Reduce the amount of office paper you use and recycle the waste paper.
- Cut back on your paper consumption by using e-mail instead of paper notes to send memos, file documents within your computer and make electronic backups instead of printing and filing paper copies, subscribe to electronic versions of newsletters, get your printing estimates right and avoid over-ordering printed materials, proof read and spell check on screen and set your printer to do double-sided printing.
- Reuse paper printed on one side for note paper or printing drafts and reuse padded envelopes where presentation quality envelopes aren’t needed.
- Develop and adopt a purchasing policy that favours environmentally-preferred products and supplies, such as recycled content toilet tissue, recycled content office paper and stationery, greener cleaning products and energy efficient light bulbs and office appliances.
- Get your electricity needs provided through an approved Green Power program. Environmental reasons aside, becoming a Green Power business can also offer marketing benefits. Research carried out by the Sustainable Energy Authority Victoria found that nearly 8 out of 10 people would prefer to buy products from companies that contribute to Green Power programs, rather than those that don't.
- When buying office products such as computers, fax machines and photocopiers look for the Energy Star label. Energy Star standard products help the environment by having special energy-saving features, such as low energy sleep or standby modes.
- Screensavers don't actually save energy, they just protect your screen. Instead use screen sleep or hard drive sleep modes that turn on automatically when your computer is not in use.
These are just some of the green office tips from Greeniology.
Greeniology: How to live well, be green and make a difference by Tanya Ha is published by Allen & Unwin and is available from all major bookstores. RRP $29.95.
Click here for more information about Greeniology.
