1. Recycle and reuse. If you
want to start small, purchase a few extra garbage cans to place around your
office, warehouse or plant. Encourage employees to recycle whatever your city
allows. The best way to ensure success is to make it easy for people. When
shopping for office supplies, look for products with less packaging and
consider buying items in bulk when possible.
2. Turn off the lights. Your
father was right. When you leave the shop at night, turn off the lights (and
the copier and computers while you're at it). Lighting accounts for 22% of all
electricity consumed in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Energy's
Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office. Most offices use overhead fluorescent
lights. Make yours more efficient by replacing T12 bulbs with T8 ones. In areas
of the office where you use regular bulbs, switch to energy-efficient light
bulbs, which use two-thirds less energy than standard bulbs and last up to 10
times longer.
3. Control the temperature.
Stop the temperature wars in your office by installing a programmable
thermostat, which allows you to set up to four pre-programmed temperature
settings. Why keep the office comfortably cool at night when no one is there?
Besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these programmable units can save
you up to $150 annually in utility costs, according to Energy Star.
4. Go paperless. The dream
of a completely paperless shop is probably far from reality, but you and your
employees can use less paper. Send e-mails instead of distributing memos
whenever possible. Encourage employees to think twice before printing every
page of that 42-page document. And instead of throwing away used copier paper,
cut it into smaller sections and use the back of the paper for scratch
notepads. It'll save trees – and money – at the same time.
– Courtesy of the National
Federation of Independent Businesses. For more information on this topic, visit
www.nfib.com.