30 days to GO Green – How to Turn Your Office Green

 

Thank you GlanZerr for the image!

If you’ve been following me the last 2 weeks you’ll have “gone green” basics at home, with your transportation and now you’re at the office or whatever business you have. 

Ready? Set? Turn your Office Green!

1.      Hold a staff meeting or write an electronic memo – announcing a new green strategy.  Make this initiative a community/team project and get brainstorming!

2.      Make it easy for others to recycle – install plastic, glass and paper recycling next to every garbage can.

3.      Charge staff $1 every time someone uses a disposable coffee cup (give the proceeds to charity or fund your holiday party with the profits)

4.      Encourage eating in at lunch – by hosting a weekly potluck.  And stock up on reusable takeaway containers and/or source restaurants in your office’s neighbourhood that will use your own take away containers to pack up to go lunches

5.      Start an office co-op for groceries – there are a lot of places that have grocery ordering online. I like www.spud.ca (because they tell you how far your food had to travel to get to its plate). The UBC Farm and others like it have Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) programs for produce, just remember to get in early in the season – they tend to sell out fast!

6.      Change your office supplies to eco-friendly versions. Again a plug for Frogfile Office Supplies in Vancouver who ONLY have environmentally responsible options for paper, office supplies and janitorial supplies.  Plus, you can shop online and they deliver right to your door.

7.      Turn off the office lights and power OFF your computers. I am often perplexed by the sheer number of office lights on late at night in downtown cores. I have worked in offices where  policy has stated to leave all computers on, even ones not acting a servers. I found this report by the State of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (from 2002) that I thought might be useful. It basically states that the suggestion to leave computers on 24/7 is based on an old technology used in computers from the 1980s. According to this study, new models of computers are not using this technology and the wear and tear of turning a PC on and off is less likely to shorten its lifespan than the consumer’s need to have a new model at least every 5 years.