7 Tips to Green Your Office

More and more companies are jumping on the "green" bandwagon as they see eco-conscious consumers taking steps to live more environmentally sustainable lifestyles. Companies are now finding that being eco-friendly puts them at a competitive advantage.

At a recent IPC "It's Not Easy Being Green" symposium, Patricia Calkins, VP of Environmental, Health, and Safety at Xerox, offered the following simple steps to extend the eco-friendly spirit to the workplace:

-         Cut paper use. Print on both sides of the page - or "duplex" printing. Print multiple pages per page.

-         Saving paper also saves energy.

-         Reach for the right paper, and recycle the paper you use.

-         Use environmentally preferable paper, which requires half the number of trees of conventional paper.

-         Install bins at several office locations to make it easier to collect paper for recycling or for reuse as notepaper.

-         Reach for the Energy Star. Upgrade old products with new, more efficient systems and the savings add up.

-         Replace copiers and printers with products that do it all. One multifunction system can handle your document needs.

-         Don't throw away empty toner cartridges. Many suppliers provide customers with prepaid postage to return cartridges for reuse and recycling.

-         Seek office equipment designed for re-manufacture or recycling. Xerox's recycling and re-manufacture programs have diverted more than 2 billion pounds of waste from landfills since 1991.

-         Use software to simplify the way you use documents. Cut back the time and energy spent on manual paper-based processes with workflow management systems and collaboration tools.

 Green strategies are not just operational, they involve educating employees, engaging them in ideas and innovation. More companies are leading the charge to be environmentally friendly – not just because it's good for our natural resources, but because it's also good for the bottom line.