The 3 Quickest Ways to Make an Environmental Impact on your Office

1. It’s going to be a bright, bright sunshiny day!

Artificial lighting accounts for 44% of the electrical use in office buildings.

Here are some tips to bring your internal lighting usage down:

• Reduce the amount of artificial light you use.
• Use natural light whenever possible.
• Turn off the lights if you are going to leave the room for more than 15 minutes
• Create an office-wide policy of using only Energy-Star rated bulbs and fixtures
• Use timers and motion sensors to turn off lights when not in use.

2. Maximize your computer efficiency

Business sector computers waste nearly $1 billion dollars a year in electricity!

• Turn off your computer at the end of each day
• During the day setting your computer to “Sleep Mode” can reduce electricity consumption by up to 70%. Note: Screen Savers do not save energy
• Make it a point to purchase hardware with an Energy-Star rating.
• Extend the life of your computers by adding a new hard-drive or upgrading the RAM
• When you simply must replace a PC, do so by donating  it to a local charitable organization for reuse.

3. Print Smarter

Overusing printing wastes paper, ink, printer life and increases manufacturing output. Some simple ways to print smarter include:

• Print double-sided
• Only print the things that need to be on paper
• Make it a policy to buy chlorine-free paper with a higher percentage of post-consumer recycled content
• Consider switching to a lighter stock of paper or alternatives made from bamboo, hemp, organic cotton, or kenaf.
• Recycle toner and ink cartridges and buy re-manufactured ones. According to Office Depot, each re-manufactured toner cartridge “keeps approximately 2.5 pounds of metal and plastic out of landfills…and conserves about a half gallon of oil.”