How to acheive a green office

mirrorball

Hi there,

The company I work for has recently decided to introduce an environmental policy and I have just been selected as one of the people on the environmental work team to put some ideas in place. Does anyone have any ideas of what can be introduced ... simple and easy to implement ideas as well as any complex ones? I have some of my own but would love to hear other peoples

The company is a reasonably sized legal firm c500 employees.

My ideas so far are:
Forcing duplex printing on any members of staff not writing to clients
Finding out if wind generated or solar electricity is an option (our building is leased)
Setting up recycling points for printer cartridges and mobile phones
Automatic shutdown of PCs after a certain time
Offering information and incentives for employees to "go green"
Looking into energy efficient lightbulbs

Does anyone have any ideas they could add?

I'm hoping that at least some of the ideas will make some money so that we can donate to a "green" charity or so we can use the money to plant new trees.

magyar

Firstly, have a look at the Carbon Trust for the complex ideas.

Then there's things like:
- setting up car sharing groups (and policies if people are travelling on business)
- if it's hard for people to travel to work by public transport (e.g. you're a long way from a station) then consider putting on a bus [obviously depends on usage]
- using recyclable drinks cups etc., or ideally glass ones.
- automatic light switches in toilets and shared areas which detect movement and turn on when people are in there
- lobby your landlord about what they are doing

Just a few off the top of my head.

liz545

mirrorball wrote:

The company I work for has recently decided to introduce an environmental policy and I have just been selected as one of the people on the environmental work team to put some ideas in place. Does anyone have any ideas of what can be introduced ... simple and easy to implement ideas as well as any complex ones? I have some of my own but would love to hear other peoples
The company is a reasonably sized legal firm c500 employees.
Does anyone have any ideas they could add?

Some fairly simple ones:

- switch to recycled paper stationery and 'green' office supplies as default
- if you have a water cooler, investigate the kind that's plumbed into the mains rather than the type which rely on plastic bottles
- proper glasses/beakers/mugs rather than the disposable kind
-switch to ecover cleaning products and recycled kitchen/loo roll
- recycle waste cd's
- if you print brochures, ask your printers/designers about more environmentally friendly options such as veg. ink, recycled paper, not using laminates/UV coatings.

And more complex ones:

-individual thermostats for rooms set to a maximum of, say, 18 degrees, only during hours when the office is occupied.
- motion detectors for hallway lights so they're off if no-one's using them.
-salary sacrifice scheme to enable staff to buy bicycles for the commute
-'green' alternatives to corporate gifts/promotional material (such as tree tubes, 'give a goat', recycled plastic branded pens/mousemats etc)

Hope this helps!

gromituk

Definitely introduce the bicycle purchase scheme: apparently it's a lot easier to administer than it used to be.

On cycling, you need to look at what facilities you provide for your employees. They will need to shower and change, and lockers would be useful, too. Bike racks are essential, but if in a public area will not be sufficient to deter theft: you will need the area cordoned off with swipe card-operated security gates or something.

There are many benefits to cycling in addition to reduced energy usage: you make your employees healthier, you cut congestion, you reduce pollution and you reduce your parking requirements.

http://www.lcc.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=13 - loads of info there, and if you're in London your company can join as an affiliate.

gromituk

I received an email this morning from a company in response to a query. The original was attached, and I noticed the following automatic addition by the mail server:

***** THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT - save paper, do you really need to print this e-mail *****

Apart from the grammar, perhaps a good idea!

mirrorball

Thanks to everyone for their help. I've made a note of the ideas and was very impressed by the Carbon Trust web-site (I've already downloaded a PDF from there).

Does anyone else have any other ideas?

arkonite_babe

If your company has water coolers, chances are they provide disposable cups for use with it? Set up a recycling point for these cups. Also on an ethical note, why not try and persuade your boss to swap to ethical water?

http://www.aquaiduk.co.uk/

Hope this helps!!

fender

Use laptops where possible, they use less energy than a desktop PC.

magyar

fender wrote:

Use laptops where possible, they use less energy than a desktop PC.

Whilst that's probably true, laptops are far less upgradeable so you might end up having to replace them more often. Also, being realistic, they take more effort to support so that may not be a practical suggestion.

Savvy_Sue

Since I was beaten to it on the bicycle suggestion, Hippos in the toilet cisterns!

Of course, it doesn't have to be a hippo, it can just be a 1/2 litre plastic bottle filled with water. Unless you're already using water efficient cisterns.

HugoSP

I suggested a traffic light system for PCs and other office equipment in an area I used to work.

Green - Switch off whenever not in use - don't just let go into standby mode. EG PCs that employees use etc.
Amber - Refer to instructions on machine. Appliances such as photocopiers may come under this one. You may not wish to switch these off between use otherwise the next person has to wait eons for it to warm up again. However you may want these switched off at the end of the day.
Red - Any equipment that MUST be left on all the time. In my old company that would include test and temperature cycling equipment etc that may be left on to carry out specific functions overnight.

Properly implemented this could save your company around £8k per annum. This estimate is based on the company I worked at that housed about the same number of office staff as yours.