25 Simple Ways to go green in the office
March 22, 2009 By: Amruta Kshemkalyani

We spend most of our time in offices. That is why if we want to follow Green living, our office also should be Green. Here are some techniques to make your office green.

1. Waste papers should go into shredder or recycler.

2. Before recycling, use the blank side of waste papers to do rough work.

3. Don’t print or copy if not required.4. Make printing on both sides of the paper and double-sided photocopy compulsory at your office.

5. Maintain different bins for different recyclable materials and recycle them. Give importance to waste management.6. Use reusable coffee mugs and glass instead of plastic cups. Consider gifting all employees coffee mugs and glass on which company logo is printed.7. Remind staff to turn off lights or terminals when not in use.

8. To save electricity, put computers, printers, copiers, and fax machines in standby or sleep mode after about 20 minutes of inactivity. The shorter the period, the more energy is saved.

9. During lunchtime, tea-coffee breaks, meetings turn off lights, AC, and devices of your workplace.

10. Make your websites green. Background black and the text white. If a background is black, it consumes less energy.

11. Instead of taking elevators use stairs. You will save energy and have exercise too!

12. Avoid keeping unnecessary extra equipment, share as much as you can in between each other to reduce energy consumption.

13. Every day before leaving for home, check out you have switched off all the equipment you use.

14. Provide task lighting instead of lighting up the whole office room.

15. Promote daylighting in offices.

16. Reduce use of toilet papers.

17. Introduce water efficient taps or half-flush toilets.

18. If there is any leakage in office, toilets treat it immediately.

19. If you have a half-used bottle of water lying around the office, use it to water the plants in or around the office.

20. When it is weekend check all equipment computers, copiers, projectors, fax machines, coffee maker, kettle, microwave etc are switched off and unplugged. Also, make sure all taps are tightly closed and not dripping.

21. Try not to provide a car to everybody in the office. Arrange transport for employees so that instead of separate vehicle they will share one vehicle.

22. Hold a contest among employees with a prize for the best ideas for reducing waste and cutting energy consumption in your company’s daily operations. Award a green employee every month.
23. Make No Smoking policy in the office to maintain good air quality in the workplace.

24. Organize a tree plantation program for employees around and in office. You can also grow plants in office indoors.

25. Lastly, if any co-worker or even cleaner in your office is unaware of energy conversation, talk to them and make them aware by sharing these green tips.

Here is a special poster I made, which we use in our office.

I will highly recommend you to read Top 10 Mistakes to avoid in Sustainable Business Practices; if you are looking for more sustainability commitment for your business.

You might like to share this beat the plastic pollution guide with your colleagues.

If you want to make your office greener, reduce waste, energy, and water consumption, plan and implement a sustainability strategy, host sustainability training or educational workshops then we can help you via our consulting arm AK Sustainability Advisory.

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