Bring green to the workplace with these five eco-friendly tips you’ll find surprisingly attractive. Stay Home! Power Nap! Print Less! Find out how these bright ideas can bring ‘green’ to a professional level.
1. Keep it Super Cyber
Add the message “Please consider the environment before printing this email” to your email signature.
Printing one single-page email every workday creates two pounds of waste a month. Multiply that by the estimated 62 billion emails sent worldwide each day and the potential for waste adds up quickly. (Tip: the green tree icon often found before the signature message above is created by typing the letter “P” in Webdings font)
2. B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Water Bottle)
Bring a refillable water bottle to the office and save money, energy and keep hydrated.
Most bottled water is consumed away from home and usually in a park, office or car. Barely 20% of plastic water bottles are recycled, and most bottles are made from petroleum. Invest in a quality stainless steel or other reusable bottle to protect against potentially harmful chemicals leached from some plastics.
3. Call in Not Sick
If possible, telecommute to work at least one day a week, or month.
Driving to work can contribute to heavy traffic congestion and long periods of idling. An idling car creates twice the emissions of a moving car, and idling 15 minutes every workday wastes numerous tanks of gas each year.
4. So What’s Your Percent?
Use the highest percentage of post-consumer waste paper available.
The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper in a year. Producing recycled paper reduces air pollution by 74% and water pollution by 35% compared to conventional paper production. Recycled paper is typically available in 10%, 30% and 100% post-consumer waste grades.
5. Take a Power Nap
Turn off or use “sleep mode” on desktop computers.
A single desktop computer can be responsible for 1,500 pounds of CO2 per year. Enabling the “sleep mode” can reduce energy consumption by up to 70%.
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In the context of today’s world, ‘consuming’ and ‘balance’ in the same sentence seems to be an oxymoron.
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