Going Green in business

Increasingly organisations are looking at increasing their ‘green credentials’, but all too often the usual factors of buying recycled products is often the limit…

If you run an organisation think about the following:

Interestingly many recycled products use more energy to recycle than produced in the first place… so be careful of which recycled products you purchase and why.

Look for products that are made from sustainable sources.

Ask your suppliers to reduce the packaging on items – or for them to taks packaging away after delivery

Certainly use products and new furniture from sustainable sources, reduce products with plastic/ man-made fibres.

Put electrical timers on to make sure all power is off at key times reduce the frequency of toilet flushes and the volume of water – some new systems are water free!Encourage the use of web conferencing rather than meetings.

Buy products with reduced packaging.buy milk in glass or card containers,don’t chill the water in the water dispenser if you have kettles – go for these heat as you need style Consider going back to the old fashioned ‘annual shutdown’ – good for staff & the environment.. you can (often) manage customer expectations.

Stop using laser printers and standard ink jet printers and use ink jets with Continuous ink systems – saves money as well as plastic, heat and lots of chemicals – not to mention reducing landfill.

Turn air conditioning up one degree, turn heating down one degree

Reduce the need for standalone equipment like faxes, photocopiers etc and go for all in one machines – they use less standby energy.

Encourage cycle to work – offer changing and shower facilities

Encourage home working

Use trains for long distance travel rather than cars – yes modern trains have wifi so you can work at the same time…

Talk to local bus providers and ask for additional routs to be run at rush hours to make public transport easier – consider sponsoring

buy services from local providers – esp consultancy, training, accountancy, design etc – reduces travel and mail costs.

Email rather than post

How green is your business? how big is your carbon footprint?