simple + green

As I’ve mentioned earlier, we’ve started a Green Team at my office. The purpose is to become more environmentally responsible by reducing waste, encourage simple changes like carpooling and using your own mug instead of grabbing for a paper cup.

All straightforward ideas for me, and most likely anyone who is reading this.

I was completely encouraged by the people who wanted to take time out of their Friday to meet about Greening the office. And I was blown away by the number of people who came to the meeting: somewhere between 20-25. Then again, we are in an area just south of San Francisco, so some of this comes with the territory.

We’re a 250-350 person office, one of several for our parent company worldwide. We’re technology-based, so other than consuming massive amounts of energy and paper (endless printing for some), we’re not responsible for much consumption.

But we definitely use our share of resources. What we are responsible for:
1. Large numbers of people driving to and from the office. Most driving anywhere from 20-30 miles each way.

2. According to one stat, we use 1500 paper cups per week! That’s roughly 5 a week for each employee. Undoubtedly higher, since many don’t use paper cups at all. Not to mention the reams of printouts every day: paperless society what?

3. 350 computers, plus any location based servers, running every single day. Most of us have laptops that we power off, but there is a high volume of passive energy being used from all of the plugs left plugged in.

4. Other energy: lights, air, cleaning, refrigeration, miscellaneous.

There is certainly room to prune in there. OK, now what?

Here are some of the big ideas that came out of our meeting:
1. Eliminate, or greatly reduce the availability of paper products. Encourage people to use mugs we would distribute. Use eventual savings to pay for biodegradable paper goods. Change default settings on the printer to 2-sided, effectively cutting paper consumption in half.

2. Set up neighborhood-specific groups for carpooling. Example: if you live in Oakland, you may meet others that want to commute in to the office together. We learned that our county provides $40 Gas coupons if you start a carpool to an office in the vicinity!

3. Educate our office (and company!) on goals and outcomes, having contests, buying food, etc. with the money we save each month and generally finding ways to keep the subject light. Let’s be real: most people are not thinking about these things when coming to work. Anything we can do to make it light and fun for people, all the better.

Again, I’m really excited about this Green office initiative. I’ll keep updating as often as I have something to note. Otherwise, what a great way to head into the weekend! I’m excited to dig into other ideas both for home and this blog.