Girl Friday’s 12 Top Tips for a Greener Office

This is a guest post by Sam Szczepanski. Sam is a music industry consultant specialising in back catalogue reissues at Ivywood Productions

Whilst we’re more inclined to eco-police ourselves at home by recycling household waste, switching off lights, turning down the thermostat, and replacing leaky washers (utility bills are high enough without making a bad situation worse) , it seems too many of us willingly check our green credentials at the door once we reach the office. Maybe we think it’s not our responsibility – hey, we’re here to work – that’s enough – or perhaps we believe the powers that be will have already done the eco groundwork by sourcing the most economical, environmentally friendly energy suppliers and products to minimise the corporate carbon footprint. Think again.

In these straitened times, most CEOs are too busy trying to keep their core business afloat to take environmental matters on board. And while they may pay it lip service, very often the only time they give it serious thought is when they see the bottom line: “How much on stationery?? In a month??? Well, Sales can kiss goodbye to that bonus!” However, taking a few steps to conserve precious resources not only makes sense from an ethical standpoint, it can also impact favourably on a company’s profit margins and in turn, the bank balances of its employees. Whether at work or at home, the environment is everyone’s responsibility so maybe the green shoots of economic recovery should start with a greener office.

Here are 12 environmentally friendly tips for you to try today:

1. Switch off the auto pilot

If you usually clock in before your colleagues, don’t switch on the photocopier the moment you arrive in the belief that it needs time to warm up. If the Art department don’t rock up until 10am, there’s little point having a thirsty colour copier drinking up the juice needlessly. Similarly, don’t make an 8-cup pot of coffee if you’re only going to have a cup or two. Your tardy workmates won’t thank you when they find the rest stewing on the hotplate.

Conversely, if you find yourself working late and pass empty offices and corridors ablaze with lighting, air-conditioning units going and stereos blaring – take the initiative and switch them off as you leave.

2. Light fantastic

Large or small, most open plan offices have static overhead lighting running on multiple circuits that can be turned off in isolation. If part of the office is unoccupied, switch off the lighting in that area. You’ll be amazed how much difference it can make to the temperature, especially in summer. Installing motion sensitive lighting along corridors is another great way to make savings.

3. Keep Your Cool

It stands to reason that with fewer appliances whirring away, your office will be cooler. Rather than reach for the AC as a matter of course, bear in mind that switching off an idle monitor or opening a window will go a long way to creating a more pleasant and in turn a more productive working environment. Strategically placed fans can also help create a breeze.

If you have the boardroom booked, consider putting on the AC for 10 minutes prior to the start of the meeting rather than having it run continuously throughout. Sitting for 45 minutes with an AC gale blowing can be just as uncomfortable and distracting as a room that’s stifling hot.

4. If You Can’t Stand The Heat

Granted your office might be chilly first thing, but get ten or twenty people working away at their computers, with two fax machines, four printers and a coffee machine going and things soon start to warm up. If your office is centrally heated and you can adjust the thermostat, try turning it down a couple of notches and consider whether the heating even needs to run all day.

5. Push The Envelope

Instead of grabbing a new Jiffy bag from the stationery cupboard, recycle those which you receive. Not every one will pass muster but by the time you slap the company label on the front, the next recipient will never know the envelope was less than pristine; some may even give you Brownie points for your green smarts.

6. Box clever

Keep a good-sized box under your desk to store packaging materials that might otherwise be consigned to landfill. Perhaps one of your colleagues is moving house; they might be glad of the acre of bubble wrap that swathed your new scanner, not forgetting those polystyrene chips and that corrugated cardboard.

7. Stop Print!

Before you hit the button consider whether you really need a hard copy of that email and ten of that 20-page marketing report. We’ve all come out of meetings where the boardroom table is left littered with discarded and doodled-on printouts of PowerPoint slides, so circulate the document via email first giving others the option to print if they wish.

8. Paper Chase

Even in the era of the so-called paperless office, it’s all too easy to accumulate sheaves of minutes and umpteen just-in-case file copies you know will never be filed. Providing the documents aren’t of a sensitive nature, keep a pile by the printer and use them for rough drafts or to print emails on the reverse. Shredded documents can be recycled.

9. Shake, Baby, Shake

When the printer starts blinking “out of ink” it might not be quite as hungry as it would have you believe. Remove the cartridge and shake it gently; more often than not there’s enough juice left to see you through another day or two. And if it really is dead, don’t forget to recycle the cartridge.

10. Get hip to the heptapleurum

Not only do plants absorb the carbon dioxide emitted by electronic equipment and release it back into the atmosphere it as oxygen, they also improve office aesthetics by softening hard edges and are a must for any green makeover. They’ve even been shown to reduce employee stress levels simply by virtue of being attractive to look at.

11. Counsel authority

With the environment high on the government’s agenda, most local councils will happily provide commercial businesses with recycling bags or crates specifically for paper, card and empty printer cartridges. Most will collect them along with your regular office waste and many can offer valuable energy-saving advice and other money-saving green tips.

12. Rise To The Top…

… By taking the stairs instead of the lift. Not only does it save electricity, it will help keep you fit, burn off that not-so skinny latte, and you might even bump into the handsome copywriter who just started, giving him the chance to ask you out to lunch at the organic cafe with the really delish flourless chocolate cake. And when you go to lunch, remember to set your PC to sleep mode.

Taking a few small steps to be leaner, meaner and greener can result in big savings and big improvements that benefit not just the health of the planet, but you and your company, too.