Garrett SaundryIt’s easy to make changes at home when it comes to helping out the environment, but it’s a little different at the office. I think that this is because when you’re at home, you can track how much you spend on the water bill, heat or hydro. At the office it’s a bit different since you normally don’t see the monthly expenses when they come it, so it may be a bit more difficult to track your useage from month to month.
Some things you can do are pretty obvious, turn the lights out, put on a sweater and fix dripping taps. It’s not so easy to convert your roof to sod and install a pack of goats if you’re working on the tenth floor of a thirty story building.
Here are a few things that you can do that you may not have thought of:
- Set up a Reuse Area for supplies you no longer need.
- Use your shredding for shipping/packing material
- Donate office equipment to charity
- Buy milk/cream in bulk and share instead of using individual creamers
- Encourage people to bike to work. Companies like Google and Yahoo offer incentives that range from free movie tickets to bike tune ups
- Take the time to set up your computer’s energy saver functions
- Print double sided, or don’t even print at all
- Turn off the lights and use natural sunlight where possible. Replace inefficient lights with LED lights
If you have been avoiding the green shift because you thought it was going to be too costly, here is your chance to re-evaluate. The smallest changes don’t really cost a thing and what you’ll find is that when you make small changes gradually, eventually the opportunity to make bigger changes and to really create an impact will come along.