Green office pet peeves

Every week I get a couple of PR pieces sent to me. I normally ignore them, but I quite liked this 'survey' from Xerox about what people get peeved about in the office:

---

The Full List

The top ten environmental pet peeves among U.S. office workers:

1) Mindless printing resulting in increased waste (40%)
2) Leaving lights on (37%)
3) Lack of recycling bins (33%)
4) Excessive air conditioning in summer and heat in winter (29%)
5) Excessive use of paper products, like cups, plates, etc. (27%)
6) Coworkers not recycling (27%)
7) Coworkers not printing double-sided when they can (24%)
8) Too many cover sheets when faxing or printing (24%)
9) Having to store paper copies of existing, electronic files (24%)
10) Leaving computer on and not powering down when going home (23%)

---

Interestingly number 10 would be no 1 on my list. What do you think?

(First published on the Sustainable Business Blog, but I thought it was relevant here too!)

Work Greener Part 1

I mentioned before that, according to Chris Goodall's book, 10% of our carbon footprint arises from our workplace. Well, in an exclusive extract from my forthcoming e-book, The Green Business Bible, here's my top ten tips for reducing the carbon footprint of your office:

Top Ten Tips for Offices

1. Run a ‘switch it off’ campaign. Rebut energy myths like “it is more efficient to leave lights on than switch them on and off”;

2. Provide feedback to your staff on energy consumption. Switch it off campaigns work best with real data to back up the message;

3. Purchase Energy Star Compliant office equipment;

4. Upgrade all lighting to the most energy efficient available;

5. Downgrade the level of lighting in non-critical areas. Most corridors are much brighter than they need to be;

6. Install automatic lighting controls, particularly for windowless rooms;

7. Set heating controls to the optimum temperature and make sure they remain there;

8. Make sure your heating tracks the temperature outside in the Spring and Autumn. If staff start opening the windows to ventilate rooms, then energy is being wasted;

9. Install a tea urn rather than individual kettles;

10. Laptop batteries will discharge if you leave them plugged into the wall, whether or not the plug is switched on – unplug them to save the charge.