Going Green in the Office

Everyone is talking about saving energy, resources and living green. Here are some tips for making your business greener from MySquareFeet, the small business Internet resource for your commercial real estate needs.

Save Trees! Here are some easy steps to use less paper in your office- and while you are saving the planet, you can save some money too, using less paper and ink.

Stop! Don't print it! - How many times have you seen an article or a webpage you want to read later and printed it? Try not to succumb to the temptation to print. If you can't read it right away, book-mark the page. In our office, when we want to click the "print this article" button, we select a pdf printer, save it to our desktop and read it later. We installed an inexpensive $17 program from NowPDF that allows us to print to a virtual printer that captures a snapshot of the page for later viewing. Not only does it save on printing in the office, we send pdf files of letters and documents attached to email messages. Then, if it needs to be printed on the other end, we are assured that the formatting is exactly as we sent it...and we saved an envelope and postage too!

Print Green! Another software package PrintGreener saves paper and ink by highlighting and removing unwanted pages, providing print overview to decide what you want to print, creating pdf files and ..here's the really cool feature...they track the pages and money you have saved by using their product. In addition, with every product sold ($40 for the basic software) they will plant a tree. If we save one or two color cartridges a year, this product would pay for itself.

Don't print the entire article if you only want one paragraph. Highlight the paragraph you want, then copy and paste it into a Word document. It's also a lot easier to use as a reference or a quote in a report if you don't have to retype it.

Use both sides of the page. Many new printers can be set to print on both sides of the page, but if your printer cannot, keep a stack of "one-side-used" paper beside the printer to print drafts or articles that will only be used for reference. We have two printers networked in our office, the default printer is filled with "one-side-used" paper; the other has our "good paper". When we want to send out something on good paper, we just use our control panel to switch printers. You would be amazed how much paper can be used more than once!

Recycle! Offices generate a lot of waste other than paper, some of it toxic. Do what you can to recycle old office equipment. You will find a host of recycling tips, locations and information at Earth911 .

Turn in old ink cartridges. FedEx/Kinkos, Staples and Office Max and some other office supply stores have recycle stations where you can drop off your old printer cartridges to be reused. Groups can even make money recycling old pring cartridges; my daughter's school collects them to send in for money to buy school supplies.

Computers don't belong in the land fill. Old computers, printers and monitors create bulky waste and have toxic substances that should not be put in the land fill. Plus, you may have a lot of sensitive information on your hard drive you don't want to share. You can take care of this yourself by cleaning the hard drive and finding a recycle center near you to drop it off, or you can use a professional service. PCDisposal has a small business plan of you have fewer than 10 computers to dispose of. They sanitize the system for you and dispose of the equipment properly at affordable rates.

Cell Phones and rechargeable batteries are toxic waste! Old phone batteries should not be thrown in the garbage. Drop them off at your nearest Office Depot which is now collecting used phones and rechargeable batteries for recycling at 960 Office Depot locations in the US and Canada. There is no charge for the service.
Turn it Off!

Unplug chargers when they are not in use! Cell phones, PDA's, Blackberry devices, iPods, Bluetooth headsets all need to be charged. Chargers, when left plugged into the sockets are still eating power, even though your device is not refueling, so take a moment to unplug them or plug all the devices into a single surge protector and turn it off when not in use.

Lights Out! Take a moment before you leave the office to turn off lights, printers, computers, monitors and copiers. The power-save mode that many pieces of equipment include are good..but...off is better! Plus, you will extend the life of your equipment. We make it our routine when we are brewing coffee in the morning to turn the equipment back on for the day..they rest overnight.

We hope you enjoyed these conservation tips from MySquareFeet . In fact, our entire business is actually an outgrowth of a conservation need in commercial real estate. We know how much time, energy, gas and mileage are consumed searching for suitable office space, retail space and industrial space for businesses. We created MySquareFeet to be the virtual tour of available spaces for small businesses. You can find space on MySquareFeet without driving around to pick up phone numbers from signs on buildings. And if you have space to lease, creating a virtual property ad is more efficient than and other method. Tenants "inspect" your available space on MySquareFeet, then contact you directly on-line when they know that the property suits their needs. No more wasted tours on tenants who won't fit in the space. Qualified leads save time and energy for owners and leasing agents. We think this is the ultimate conservation contribution we make at MySquareFeet..because we know that your time is a non-renewable resource.

MySquareFeet encourages you to green your office today!

Comments

[Patricia]

Fascinating - right in line with a recent National Geographic article that talks about where our used PCs end up - many of them are being dumped all over Africa, and the often highly toxic compenent parts are contaminating the scarce water supplies they have! We should all do our part to responsibly dispose of our office equipment and give Mother Nature a break!