Green solutions can range in scope from something as simple as changing your lights over to newer ones to complex far sighted efforts that involve creating your own office power sources. Between these two extremes, there are plenty of other unique solutions for environmentally conscious companies. You can also take a look at 10 Easy Steps To Green Your Office for ideas.
Here are some of them:
1. Switching to modern, High Efficiency Lighting
The single most basic thing any business could do any time it wants to make the world a greener place, its company carbon footprint smaller and the annual electrical bill much leaner: Switching over from incandescent bulbs to other sources of lighting is soon going to be effectively mandatory thanks to the near illegalization of the classical filament light bulb. But, the power savings don’t need to end there because even amongst the energy efficient bulb types, there are massive differences in quality to be found.
The two main rivals are CFL and LED lighting fixtures. CFL (compact fluorescent) and LED (light emitting diode) lights. Both are much more energy efficient than their ancient predecessor but between the two of them, the LED is a complete winner. It uses less than half as many watts and kWh in energy and it costs less than half of what a CFL will cost to run per year. Furthermore, the LED bulb easily outlives even the best CFLS by more than 6 times! Sure these awesome new lighting systems are more expensive per unit, but the cost savings over several years will be enormous. Check out this handy guide for the detailed comparison.
2. Moving Towards the Paperless Office
Paper pulp (read: Tree lumber) consumption in the United States easily surpasses several billion tons per year, and while a lot of this is not going to go away at any time in the near, foreseeable future, there is a lot that can be done by the country’s millions of smaller and medium businesses simply by making their offices as paperless as possible.
This is now becoming easier than ever and many businesses with some good modern foresight are adapting to it rigorously for the green benefits, ink savings and savings on constant paper shuffling and purchasing.
By investing in cloud sharing technologies, digital collaboration tools and taking full advantage of all available digital storage and data sharing media that exist today –and there are thousands of them!—you can cut down dramatically on just how much paper and ink your company needs to eat through in a year.
3. Encouraging Telecommuting and Online Video Meetings
Just like with the move towards paperless offices, technology is also giving a big boost to the move in the direction of completely location free offices! Creating a location free office through telecommuting may represent one of the largest potential game changers in terms of business resource use.
the concept of outsourcing as much work as possible to remotely operating, home based telecommuters and holding as many business meetings as possible in an online setting in full multimedia is taking hold in many companies and with moves in the direction of a service oriented economy, it’s also becoming more possible than ever.
By shifting your business in this direction as much as is possible given your logistics, you’ll be creating enormous energy savings for yourself and every single one of your employees. The sheer decreases in fuel, vehicles, floor space and even electricity used can reach into the thousands of dollars and hundreds of tons of carbon saved per year. The video conferencing trend will only move forward, giving its early adapters a very nice competitive edge in terms of company overhead leanness.
4. Getting Radical with Environmental Remediation
For companies that do need to occupy large pieces of office space or even whole plots of land for the needs of their business operations. One radical step being taken by some entrepreneurs and business managers is to develop environmental remediation solutions on the very land they occupy.
Sometimes these can be done out of genuine sanitary need and other times simply for the good of the surrounding land itself. What environmental remediation refers to is the general practice of cleaning contaminants and potential environmental hazards out of a space so that it becomes a cleaner environment for the people and even animal life nearby.
Some companies, such as one recent case in Chicago, even go as far as having old underground storage tank removal done below their company’s work office. This might be expensive, but it definitely helps the local water supply and soil conditions get cleaner and greener.
5. Hooking up to Independent Power Sources/Investing in Recycled Materials
As a final, very unique and sometimes costly step in becoming a truly green company, you and your business can try hooking yourselves up to your own completely independent and sustainable power source.
The natural and most likely solutions here would involve wind and solar power installation: if your company has its own roof space to work with and gets regular access to wind and sunshine, either energy solution is possible.
Best of all, fairly recent technological advancements, especially in solar power, are leading to solar arrays that are both cheap and extremely efficient compared to the systems of just 10 to 20 years ago.
About the author: Stephan Jukic is a freelance writer who generally covers a variety of subjects relating to the latest changes in white hat SEO, marketing, marketing tech and brand promotion. He also loves to read and write about subjects as varied as the idea of a location-free business, portable business management, and strategic marketing and advertising tactics. When he’s not busy writing or consulting, he spends his days enjoying life’s adventures either in Canada or Mexico. Connect with Stephan on Google+ and LinkedIn.
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