Green Your Office
With the high cost of energy, growing climate change awareness, and the desire to live healthier lifestyles, many American consumers are trying to live “green” and buy “green” at home. Once people leave home and arrive at their office, however, their actions aren’t always quite as green.
Source: Harris Interactive poll, January 2008.
It’s not because employers and employees don’t care about the environment. They do! And they care about the other green too—the use of energy, paper, and other resources costs money and can impact the bottom line.
Most often, they are just unsure how to get started. Below are some tips to help you get going.
If you’d like a more in-depth advice on how to set up a green office program and deal with issues specific to your office, ERG offers a half-day Green Your Office workshop. For more information or to schedule a workshop at your office, contact us at greenyouroffice@erg.com.
Environmental Management Systems
While undertaking individual green activities will help your office reduce its impact on the environment, you might want to take a more comprehensive approach by adopting an Environmental Management System (EMS). An EMS will formalize the way your office addresses environmental issues and give you measurable results. Contact us at greenyouroffice@erg.com if you would like ERG to help you implement an EMS.
Did you know?
ERG helped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency implement an EMS across the entire Agency.
Tips for Greening Your Office
Green Your Lighting
Lighting accounts for 26 percent of the energy consumed by a typical office building.2
What To Do
- Conduct a lighting survey to learn more about your lighting choices.
- Upgrade to more energy-efficient lighting.
- Encourage staff to turn off lights when leaving for the day.
- Assess the possibility of task lighting to reduce excess light demand.
Special Considerations
- Most offices do not have individual meters, so work with your building management to measure progress and negotiate cost reductions in future leases.
Green Your Energy
Why buy dirty power when you can buy clean power? Fossil fuel-fired power plants are responsible for 67 percent of the nation's sulfur dioxide emissions, 23 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions, and 40 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
What To Do
- Offset the environmental impacts from your office’s use of electric power from nonrenewable generating sources by purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).
- Encourage employees to purchase green power (or install green energy technologies) at home.
- Reduce your energy consumption as much as possible by adopting energy-efficient products and practices.
Green Your Paper Consumption
Employees in most offices use printers and copiers without regard to the amount of paper they are consuming.
What To Do
- Purchase printers and copiers with duplexing units and make the double-sided setting the default.
- Print only what's necessary.
- Edit online if possible.
- Find ways to reuse banner pages or other used paper.
- Hold a competition to see which group can achieve the greatest reduction in the amount of paper purchased or number of impressions made.
- Buy high recycled-content paper to conserve resources.
- Implement a junk mail reduction program at your office.
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Green Your Recyclables
Your office may already recycle, but there are always opportunities to improve your recycling program.
What To Do
- Start an office recycling program if you do not have one or expand an existing program. Discuss with your building manager and with other tenants in your building.
- Recycle as many materials as you can. In addition to paper, consider recycling your cardboard, cans and bottles, and batteries.
- “Close the loop” by buying products with recycled content.
Green Your Computers
Office computers contain toxic materials and use energy, creating significant environmental impacts.
What To Do
- Purchase only desktop computers and laptops that are rated “bronze” or better according to the criteria listed by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT).
- Encourage employees to activate the ENERGY STAR® power management features on their computers.
- Instruct employees to always power off computers before leaving for the day.
- Purchase new printers that meet ENERGY STAR standards.
Green Your E-Waste
In 2005, used or unwanted electronics amounted to approximately 2 million tons.3
What To Do
- Donate your reusable computers.
- Recycle electronics if no longer usable.
- Purchase environmentally preferable electronics that contain fewer toxics and meet Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) criteria.
Special considerations
- Before donating electronics, make sure the recipient will actually be able to use them. Even in good condition, equipment more than five years old may be “obsolete.”
- Investigate the recycling process of any vendors to whom you send equipment to. A significant amount of e-waste is shipped overseas where recycling practices expose workers and the environment to serious hazards.
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Green Your Cleaning
Indoor levels of pollutants could be two to five times higher, and occasionally more than 100 times higher, than outdoor levels.4
What To Do
- Purchase less toxic cleaning supplies to improve worker safety and indoor air quality.
- Use the Green Cleaning Pollution Prevention Calculator developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to see how using green cleaning techniques could benefit your office.
Special Considerations
- Many offices rely on building-wide janitorial contracts, so work with your building management to amend and develop new policies for environmentally preferable cleaning products.
Green Your Commuting
Between 2002 and 2012, commuters in single-occupancy vehicles will increase the number of miles they travel by at least 15 percent, producing an additional 43 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually.5
What To Do
- Conduct a commuting survey to learn more about your employees’ commuting habits.
- Provide incentives to encourage employees to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips to work, including subsidized transit passes, pre-tax deductions for commuting costs, and guaranteed emergency rides home for employees who do not drive to work.
- Implement flexible scheduling to allow employees to travel during off-peak times or compress their workweeks.
- Provide computing resources that allow many employees to work from home.
Green Your Business Travel
On average, business travel accounts for 15 to 20 percent of a company’s total emissions; for service companies, this figure can reach as high as 80 percent.6
What To Do
- Conduct meetings via telephone or Web cast instead of in person, where possible.
- Condense the number of trips you need to take.
- Purchase carbon offsets to “balance” the greenhouse gas emissions produced from traveling.
- Book a room at a green hotel.
- Rent a hybrid or other fuel-efficient vehicle.
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Green Your Meetings
A green meeting “incorporates environmental considerations throughout all stages of the meeting in order to minimize the negative impact on the environment.”7
What To Do
- Hold paperless meetings, e-mailing or posting materials online prior to the event.
- Buy meeting supplies that contain a high percentage of recycled content materials.
- Select a venue that offers environmental programs such as recycling, energy conservation, and water efficiency.
- Opt to hold your meeting in a location with public transportation when possible.
- Skip single-serve food and beverage containers; serve in bulk.
Green Your Renovations
Renovating existing buildings instead of constructing new ones conserves natural resources and reduces waste.
What To Do
- Optimize energy efficiency.
- Select environmentally preferable materials for your renovation, such as carpet, paint, and furniture.
- Consider earning certification from an environmental building program or using the criteria to help you plan your renovation.
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Tips for
Greening Your Office
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