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Office buildings produce millions of tones of greenhouse gases each year. Simple steps can be made to reduce the environmental impact of your office.

Posted By: oaatf
Posted On: November 13, 2008

This November 23rd -29th is Zero Footprint Week. An initiative of the One at a Time Foundation, Zero Footprint Week is an umbrella awareness week that invites individuals, families and businesses to take simple steps to reduce their ecological footprint, save money, and help to halt climate change.

Here are three progressive tips from Zero Footprint Week and the One at a Time Foundation to help reduce your ecological footprint at work one easy step at a time.

1. The First Step: Switch Off
Treating your office appliances and power ports like those in your home can greatly reduce your office’s energy consumption and carbon emissions.  Switching off computers and turning off lights in empty bathrooms, offices or conference rooms not only helps the environment but can save your office money every month.

Benefit: By merely implementing responsible energy usage policies in the office, a business can save as much as 20% on its monthly energy bills.

2. The Next Step: Organise an Office Recycling Program
Offices can use hundreds of kilograms of paper, cardboard and plastic supplies each month.  Instead of chucking them in the bin, organize an office recycling program for all of that rubbish.  If your office already has a program, revitalise it by encouraging other coworkers and management to recycle.

Benefit: It is cheaper for a waste collection company to collect recyclable materials than it is for them to collect garbage.  Recycling paper alone (which accounts for 55% of office waste) can save your office hundreds of dollars per month.

3. The Big Step: Measure, Offset and Reduce Carbon Footprints
Taking greater account for your office’s carbon footprint is the first step towards reducing its impact on the environment.  Once the footprint is identified, your office can work on ways to reduce it such as purchasing carbon credits from companies like Climate Friendly (www.climatefriendly.com).

Benefit: Moving your office towards carbon neutrality now will save your office the struggle of having to do so in 2010 when the federal government’s mandatory Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme goes into effect.

To find your office’s environmental footprint and more tips on how you can best improve it, please visit the EPA Victoria’s office footprint calculator at http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/calculators/office/orgDetails.asp.