Offices, like all communal spaces, are notorius for descending into messy chaos if people don't take responsibility for keeping them clean, and when it comes to ensuring a tidy carbon footprint, it's exactly the same deal.
The first thing to remember when trying to green up your office is to talk to everyone in it and make sure they don't have any funny ideas about what this might entail. Do they, for example, think it's impossible to recycle plastic, or that buying in bottled water is a good idea? Clear up any myths, assign roles and draw up a rota for recycling, composting, charity shop collecting and any other great ideas you might have. Then make sure you've got the following solutions in place...
Follow the jump to find out what else you can do to make your office a greener place
• Bottled water is bad!
This is one area of office life that can easily be 'greened up', that many people seem slow to appreciate. Regardless of whether your water is 'locally sourced', it's more than likely it's going to be delivered in a van, and a fuel-hungry van laden down with hundreds of heavy bottles at that. Add to this the amount of plastic used to make those regularly-replaced giant plastic flasks, and you've got a situation that's never going to be very green.
In today's offices, it seems to be an accepted fact that offering clients tap water is corporate suicide, so the greenest way you can get round this is by doing as we did at Shiny Towers and insall a water filtration system. These plug into the water mains and the water comes out in a unit that can be placed anywhere in the office - just like a water fountain. The water will be chilled, comes out in an instant and should taste much like it came from bottle. We got our plumbed in 'Kalix' filter from Freshwater Coolers, and nobody's complained yet! For smaller offices, a water filter jug or two should do the trick nicely.
• Recycle
You'd think this point hardly needed making, but having seen the inside of quite a few, I'm shocked at how many offices lack even basic paper recycling facilities. Oddly, the worst offender I've ever encountered was the NHS, where I temped briefly in 2006; I spent days trying to 'find' the recycling bin, thinking I was missing something obvious before being told that such a thing simlpy did not exist. While I accept that the health service has other issues to attend to, this did shock me, and led me to take matters into my own hands.
If your office is similarly ill-equipped, you can always appoint yourself 'recycling monitor' and look into local services: details for these will be accessible via your local council and you may be able to shop around to find one that suits your business's needs. We tried two or three before finding a really affordable council-run scheme that lets us mix paper, plastic and glass and is collected once a week.
• Re-use
Again, a bit of a no-brainer but one that may take some organisation. Make sure there's a known repository for pre-used envelopes that staff can dig into each time they need to send their own post. If you bring lunches in with you, you can also do a Tupperware swap - let people know if you don't mind them taking away your empty boxes at the end of the day
• Organise a clothes swap
It may not quite be up to Twiggy's standards, but the office is a great place to swap clothes, since participants will be in the same place each day, and can quietly add to a pile of garments over a number of weeks until you've got enough for a big swap-o-rama: this can be a great company bonding exercise, particularly if you get in some (fair trade!) snacks, drinks and bubbly to encourage staff to contribute to the event (here we are doing ours!) If there are any unwanted items left at the end of the day, you can always take them down to a local charity shop.
• Take control of the office shopping list
Old habits can die hard in offices, and if those habits include buying inethically produced stationery, tea, coffee, dishwasher powder and other sundries, have a polite word with whoever is responsible for buying in supplies. They may not realise you can easily get hold of fairtrade, eco-friendly and organic products for little or nothimg more than the standard sort, and the same goes for recycled paper and notebooks.
When it comes to bigger purchases, you may be surprised at how much influence you can have, even if you're fairly junior. Computers that save on C02 also cut down on your company's electricity bill, so the odds are the powers that be will appreciate your input.
• Save energy by switching off
The best energy saving gadget in the office by a long way is Katie, our Editorial Director, who makes a point of telling us to 'switch off' at the end of each day, but there are also an array of gadgets that will help you remember what to do! I use the Auto Switch-Off adapter from EcoElectricals: It sits under my desk, and ensures that once my computer is off, all the other paraphernalia on my desk (lights, phone charger, rocket launcher etc) automatically switch off too - which is great for forgetful types like me. It's been such a hit that we're thinking of installing them throughout the office.
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