Greening the Office Space: How You and Your Coworkers Can Cut Costs

As nations gear up toward Peak Oil, conserving energy becomes increasingly important.  This includes the office, where the business of business takes place at the highest levels, with executives establishing production quotas even as they develop downsizing plans to boost the bottom line.

You, as an office worker or manager, can help in that effort, and also help yourself, since the better your company does, the more likely you are to keep your job and even (someday, sigh) get a raise.

Take baby steps, like:

• Recycling printer cartridges for charity, which saves the earth and helps fund non-profit rescue organizations
• Shutting down your computer, or at least your monitor, when you leave work. A monitor uses about twice as much energy as a CPU.
• Reducing or eliminating unnecessary print jobs by making often-used office documents available (and interactive) online. Most printers use more energy in standby or sleep mode than they do printing.

Make the steps bigger as you and your coworkers become more comfortable with change. For example, urge your company to install overhead fans to eliminate cubicle overheating or chilly spots, which can be symptoms of a potential “sick building” problem.

When everyone has gotten behind your “green office” campaign, go big-time. Ask the office manager to buy occupancy sensors for the offices, so that lights automatically turn off when occupants leave. This alone can save up to 40 percent of lighting costs.

Then ask your IT guru to do the same for the computers, using software that automatically logs them off after they stand idle for more than 15 minutes.

Tackle the lunch/break room, where always-on vending machines can be put on a diet with Vending Mi$er, or similar automated control systems.

Another big but important step is switching out incandescent-lit areas and signs with newer, true-white LEDs, which are even more energy efficient than compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), and don’t contain dangerous mercury.

Advance to the lavatories and install low-flow faucets and water-miser toilets. If you can’t afford to go whole-hog, given the lingering recession, adapt toilets by filling an empty gallon milk jug with water and dropping it into the right side of the tank, clear of the valve and stopper assembly.

And a final, though very expensive step: switch ink-jet and laser printers for a PrePeat printer, which works without ink or plain paper, and reuses special plastic sheets hundreds of times by essentially “erasing” them with heat.

Photo Credit: ecotopia

Greening the Office Space: How You and Your Coworkers Can Cut Costs