Once upon a time, businesses would brag about their charity work and involvement with community programmes, but Green issues are now at the top of the agenda. Companies are racing to prove that they are ecologically friendly, and regardless of motivation, the results are the same - the planet benefits (as do our great-great grandchildren). So how can we make our businesses more eco-compliant? Here are some ideas…
1. Share Your Journey
If you have a regular drive to work, is there any way you can share the journeys in with one of your colleagues? Sure, it can be a bit of a hassle from time to time, but it shouldn’t be difficult with a little co-ordination and forward planning. And it will give you some time to do a bit of reading or extra sleeping on the days when you aren’t driving. A friend of mine started doing this last year and it’s worked out a treat. He car-shares twice a week – which is a lot better than nothing at all – and his wife is happier because as a result of agreeing to a fixed time with the car-share buddy, he never stays too late in the office!
2. Let Your Cup Runneth Over
Try doing a count one day – how many times do you go to the water cooler, pick up a fresh cup and put it in the bin again? What about a disposable cup from the coffee machine? This eco-gesture is pretty simple and you’ll need the following items to cultivate a ‘green’ drinking habit: One plastic bottle, one thermos cup, two labels and one marker pen. You’ve got it - write your name on the stickers, put them on the side of the containers, and from this day on try to drink from the reusable cups as much as possible.
3. Monitor Your Usage
Do you even want to know how much energy is wasted by hundreds of thousands of computer monitors being left on overnight? I mean, there are huge amounts of energy wasted when people leave home televisions on standby when they leave the house, so can you imagine what it must be like for computer monitors? It’s been estimated that in the USA, £7.5 million worth of energy is wasted from leaving computers switched on. Oops. When you go home, turn it off.
4. Big Green Feet: Know Your Footprint
We all know about carbon footprints, but often don't think about what's called our secondary carbon footprint, which the amount of fuels burned during the various stages from the manufacture to the disposal of the products we use. We can think twice before buying a pint of milk that’s packaged in plastic and transported in from the other side of the country – milk in a glass bottle from a local dairy has to travel a shorter distance and is in a container that can be easily recycled. Easy stuff.
5. A Grassroots Green Board
There is no shortage of ideas for making your office more green. It might be switching your light bulbs to energy-saving ones or turning down the heating by a couple of degrees and encouraging people to wear jumpers. Better still, keep the whole thing grassroots – why not put up a notice board for people to write their own ideas down? Organisations often have a lot more inherent wisdom than they take credit for and it’s worth giving your colleagues the opportunity to share their own ideas. And if you come up with any world-changing ideas, let us know!
Here are some websites to help you along with greening your business:
Green shopping - http://www.greenrewards.co.uk
Carbon footprint calculator: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/
Fairtrade foundation: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/
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