Going green at work

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(livelychick @ Jan 23 2007, 09:44 AM) [snapback]379470[/snapback]</div>

If you can convince someone that it will save money, then that is usually a big first step. If there's money to be saved, I can't believe any corporation is not trying to save it these days. I'd think paper recycling would be a biggy, and possibly a good place to start. Good luck.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Jan 23 2007, 09:59 AM) [snapback]379475[/snapback]</div>

Mean evil corporate WalMart is apparently going very green besides pushing green light bulbs. They are currently seeking contracts for the worlds largest solar panel project - imagine the money if they start selling electricity they generate for their building that they do not use. How about going to walmart and being able to plug in your hybrid while you shop :lol:

Maybe the greenies/lefties will start seeing the light - just a pun here.

Make being green economical and profitable and it will work. I even burn wood to heat my house instead of natural gas - and there is not a tree i would not hesitate to cut down if i could. its just the economics of it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jan 23 2007, 10:23 AM) [snapback]379480[/snapback]</div>

Why are you hijacking a thread about office conservation to talk about WalMart? I'm happy for their efforts, but this seems to have no bearing on the question at hand: How would you suggest livelychick help her office to become more green?

 

I think you're in for a rough road. As dbermanmd suggested, they'll probably only be receptive if it doesn't adversely affect their bottom line profit. If you're up for it, you should do a cost analysis of suggestions that could be implemented and provide corporate with the resulting costs saved. Also, if any of your co-workers are receptive, they could probably provide you with departmental ideas since the various departments may be using resources differently than eachother. The following statement is more for humor but I wish that things like this could occur in the real world....a bonus system is enacted whereby the department most effective at implementing green solutions AND passing on cost savings to the corporation are rewarded with a bonus that's derived from a penalty assessed to all other departments that aren't providing same. This probably would never work as some departments will never be able to achieve as lofty goals as others depending on their respective responsibilities.

You may also want to contact the municipality in which your office resides to see about any tax incentives for the implementation of green solutions. Maybe they can even set your offices up w/ recycling bins and pick these up on a regular basis.

It seems to me that the easiest, most convenient and most cost saving items on your agenda could be lighting, water use, computer use, recycling.

I feel your pain. Good luck on this. I'm fortunate enough to work w/ my sister. We don't need lights as we have a huge office window, I have a recycling box that I bring home every couple weeks, I use both sides of each sheet of paper and turn my computer off every night. That's not to say that the office that we rent from isn't negligent. They pulled the office recycling bins, water the f'in grass ALL THE TIME, have crappy windows that I can feel the cold air come through. They also run the dishwasher half full. UGH!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Jan 23 2007, 10:59 AM) [snapback]379504[/snapback]</div>

Yes, that's unhelpful.

I'm not an expert here but I'll offer suggestions anyway.

First, I'd assume that the management of the store properties themselves is probably in somebody else's hands. IE, that the corporation running the shopping mall is in charge of energy use there, and you probably don't have a lot of say in it. And, probably, there's relatively little scope for action anyway. The lights are fluorescent, the heat and insulation are out of your hands, and I would assume that clean corrugated cardboard is already being recycled.

In an office setting, assuming it's a fairly modern building, electricity use by computers is, I believe, the #1 easily modified energy waster. There's an entire Dept of Energy site on this, if I can find it, talking about how much money you can save by proper management of computer power settings. Of course, you should casually ask your IT dep't first if they already do this, because it'll look like you're doing their job, but in fact, because IT doesn't pay for the electric, but has to deal with any fallout, they may not have been as diligent as they should have been, and it may require some prodding from above to make this go. WHich is why the cost savings issue is key, and why this page lets you calculate the cost savings.

Anyway, if you can get your IT dept to change, this one has zero cash cost but significant savings -- so it should be an easy sell.

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=powe...ower_management

That's the page I come up with now, but somehow -- it doesn't look right. No, that has to be it -- it's part of the US DOE. In fact, the energystar homepage is a good place to look:

http://www.energystar.gov/

Second on the list would be an energy audit of the building by a pro. But if this is a modern airtight office building, I'd suggest they are unlikely to find easy savings. This has a small cash cost, but a pro will be able to sell modifications based on cost savings.

Car commuting is third, but ... this is America, after all. I bike commuted to work for some years, but only because there was a gym next door where I could shower. Anyway, whether there is anything that could be done there is up to the specific circumstances. Are they adequately friendly toward commuters who bicycle (racks provided, at least)? Have there been any attempts to organize rideshare/carpool arrangements. For company cars, would a Flexcar/ZIPcar setup do better for them than a dedicated company car? (Try www.flexcar.com or www.zipcar.com). Are any company cars fuel-efficient -- lot of buzz these days as companies buy Prii for company cars. Like, if your sales reps or buyers do a lot of car travel, that's a good suggestion.

But basically, people won't get out of their cars, that's my take on it. But with 3000 people, it's just possible that some of your outlying employees haven't discovered that they could share a long commute. That's why an organized rideshare board can sometimes be helpful.

Fourth, if they want to SPEND money, in some states they can buy green electricity. (See my green electric DC/MD/VA thread). I didn't know this in Virginia until a couple of weeks ago. But you will see companies opt for the higher cost electric, and then use that to advertise their "greenness" -- that the power for their corp headquarters comes from renewables. That can be worth it to top management depending on the product.

Fifth, in recycling. Well, the right way to do this is to have a building maintenance and trash disposal contract that specifies recycling. But in places where recycling is not mandatory, good luck getting that. Otherwise, do-it-yourself is just too damned much trouble for management to deal with, and you are stuck doing what you are doing -- using up your time to take care of it. And not having it done firmwide.

At the minimum, I'd write a letter to whoever handles your building and maintenance issues to raise the possibility of a contract specifying recycling.

The market for post-consumer waste is, I believe, highly variable and highly regional, in terms of what the recyclers can make money from, and how much hassle it is. Here in Vienna VA, we get to dump plastic (1+2), aluminum and steel containers, and glass bottles into one bag, paper and cardboard into another, and the town picks it up and deals with it, courtesy of a big sorting center up in Montgomery County MD. How much hassle you have to go through is your issue.

As far as I can tell, aluminum and PETE (soda bottles) always pay well, everything else is marginal, and where it works on a proft/loss basis, it works because the mix makes it about breakeven. In DC, they had a problem for a while of people stripping the aluminum cans out of the curbside recyclables, which made the rest unprofitable. And also, in this area at least, avoiding the tipping fees incurred when you dump it in the landfill is a noticeable part of the entire picture. Town of Vienna recyles yard waste (leaves, grass clippings, branches) and even on that they come close to breakeven because they avoid having to haul it to the landfill and pay the tipping fees. Plus, it's a nice service to the residents, and we get free mulch out of the deal.

So I'm not sure there's a good way to deal systematically with the recycling issue on a firmwide basis, unless management gets behind you. The volume of potentially recyclable trash from 3000 people would probably be measured in tons per week.

You might also take a minute to figure how best to approach this overall -- to present it to management as a strategy all at once, or to piecemeal it. There are advantages to both. My guess is that most management would not have a spare 60 seconds for this unless you demonstrate profit and/or marketing potential. In which case, piecemeal. But who knows. Good luck.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Jan 23 2007, 11:45 AM) [snapback]379535[/snapback]</div>

I'd second that.

And it reminds me that this also works if you put the savings in your (your employees') pocket.

So, I forgot to say that aluminum is typically so profitable that you can (e.g.) sometimes fund the office parties out of the aluminum sales. If you can find a buyer for the aluminum, in your area. I've worked places where the office manager dealt with the metals recycling, to produce an office slush fund, for parties. Which helps to get everybody on board, vis-a-vis aluminum. Doesn't help with the rest, but recycling aluminum is a good thing. I've been told that the energy required to produce the typical aluminum can is equivalent to half-filling the can with gasoline.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jan 23 2007, 12:10 PM) [snapback]379549[/snapback]</div>

Sorry, I am trying to be better about that...

Anyway, the company I work for is very conscientious about recycling office paper, and reducing the amount of paper in general. There is a company that provides us with separate dumpsters for office paper only and is responsible for emptying them, and knowing this company, I can only assume that this is an income, not an expense.

 

Schools represent 15% of the waste stream of every community, yet, we have very little recycling in schools. Whether coporate, residential or education, we need to model what we teach. Even pointing out revenue opportunities it is often hard to overcome old habits and inertia. It seems bizarre, but Europe, especially Germany does a far superior pre- and re-cycling effort.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Jan 23 2007, 01:13 PM) [snapback]379598[/snapback]</div>

Any chance you could cite some sources on this? Not trying to nag, but I've run my household energy consumption spreadsheet to the point where I want to add the pro-rata shares of consumption of things I might be able to influence (school, church, and so on). So I'm looking for the data on my pro-rata share of the consumption that occurs in schools and such.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(livelychick @ Jan 23 2007, 06:44 AM) [snapback]379470[/snapback]</div>

Saving money is the key, unless they can get some mileage from the green efforts in a PR sense. So look for things that will save money.

In my community, the trash haulers can give you a "mixed recycle" bin (just as big as the other trash bin that the big truck comes and empties). The monthly fee for the mixed recycle bin is about 75% of the monthly fee for the bin destined for the landfill. I convinced my company to go to mixed recycling rather than add a second regular bin, and save the 25%. It was an easy sell. We put out blue recycle trash cans, and mixed recyclables go into them, and the cleaning service dumps them into the recycle bin.

Most offices already use the most efficient lighting they can, because electric bills are a huge expense. You probably already have fluorescents, and the Home Depot style lights may not even fit in them. But if you have incandescent light bulbs, talk to whoever does the maintenance about the longer lasting compact fluorescents that save electricity. They won't replace them as often, and they save money in the long run on the electricity.

I left the middle bank of lights in the restroom dark (the men's room ... the ladies didn't like the lower light level for some reason, so we have them fired up with all six lights).

Little things help a lot. One company I worked at had an employee run recycling program that used the money from recycling for employee pizza parties. So don't rule out a completely voluntary effort from some like minded employees.

One thing you probably will not be able to save money on is the thermostat setting. My experience has been that perfectly normal people will turn into savages when it gets one degree too cold or too warm.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Jan 23 2007, 01:13 PM) [snapback]379598[/snapback]</div>

We have PV panels on our roof, we recycle paper and cans and the cartriges from the printers and copiers. Attachements on e-mail have replaced running off paper to put in staff boxes. (At least 100 each time.) We no longer used pads of "passes", rather the students have "campus pass" pages in their agendas we fill out when they need to be out of class. No agenda...no pass. I reuse boxes and envelopes going out through the school mail. We don't use incandescents. Our lights are on timers that shut off when no motion is detectd after 5 min. We power down all of our computers, printers, copiers, etc at the end of the day. The heat (when it actually works) is also on timers and the thermostats are pre-set and locked to prevent tampering. We have no air conditioners. Landscaping isn't watered (or maintained for that matter...plenty of weeds.)

Yes, we could do more. But we do more than plenty of households.

Some we cannot do, I suspect because of some sort of regulations.

Be we are trying to do what we can.

I would suggest taking chogan's suggestions with your company. It's a money issue. Make it pay. Make going green a smart fiscal decision. Create a presentation with hard numbers, graphs, charts, etc. Make it clear how much NOT going green costs. If implementing green saves green, you should get employee of the month or something.

 

I'm what you call a Green President. Only 5 employees though, mostly part-timers.

Still, implemented a recycling program, will save $$ on nice-to-have computer upgrades to finance a windmill to power the UPS batteries that power the servers.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Jan 23 2007, 06:59 AM) [snapback]379475[/snapback]</div>

True, to that end the place where I work has stopped offering paper plates, cups and plastic knives, forks and spoons. It's bring your own.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jan 23 2007, 09:29 PM) [snapback]379910[/snapback]</div>

One of the bathrooms has a motion detector. Lights go off after so long without movement.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Jan 23 2007, 09:03 PM) [snapback]379893[/snapback]</div>

This is the figure used by the California Solid Waste Management Board. It is on line

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aaf709 @ Feb 1 2007, 07:54 PM) [snapback]384165[/snapback]</div>

What if you just have to pee? Do you have to finish the 'paperwork' in the dark?