The Green Publishing blog

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Green your office
People are often asking us how they can make a difference in their own office.

We have put together 5 small changes that everyone can make, that will help us reduce our impact on the planet.

If you agree or disagree with any of these ideas, or have some ideas of your own, please email us.

1. Review
We would recommend that the first step should be to conduct a review of your office, then put a small team of like-minded people together and make some, or all of these changes.

2. Paper
Probably the most obvious change you can make is to reduce the amount of paper that is used in your office.

You can do this by making the following changes:

• put a recycled paper box close to your printer/photocopier
• set your computers, printers and photocopiers to print both sides
• use email instead of paper whenever possible
• get out of the habit of printing your emails
• proofread your documents on-screen before printing them off

When choosing the paper your office uses, choose paper that is made from recycled waste or sustainable alternative fibres and comes from Australia – there’s no point in using recycled paper if it is shipped over from China!

3. Electricity
Use electricity wisely. Turn off all computers, printers, photocopiers, and other equipment that don’t need to be left on at the end of the day and leave them off until you need to use them again.

Check that all computers/monitors are set to their most energy efficient settings (e.g., monitor set to shut off after 15 minutes of no use).

When leaving a room for more than a few minutes, switch off the lights. Use compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent ones. Take advantage of natural sunlight as much as possible.

4. The three ‘R’s’
“Reduce, reuse, recycle.” This means more than just throwing paper in the recycle bin. You should really think about everything you use. Ask yourselves a few questions:

• Do you need disposable cups at the water cooler?
• Can the envelopes/boxes you receive be used again?
• Can you use the other side of the used sheets of paper you’ve thrown in the recycle bin?

Australia has now added a fourth R – Refuse. Simply put: Don’t buy things you don’t need.

5. Environmentally friendly office products.
On average, they only cost 5% more, which is a small price to pay to cut down on waste and pollution.

Start small – 100% recycled paper, refillable ink cartridges, non-toxic highlighters, etc. Check out Going Green Solutions for environmentally friendly office products.

Next month we'll have another 5 ideas to green your office,and if you have any other ideas, we'd love to hear them, so let us know and we'll do our best to include them.