Modern office complexes are considered to be some of the biggest carbon generators. If you really care about the environment and ecology, it is a must that you strive to reduce the carbon footprint of your workplace. If the carbon footprint of every workplace in the world can be brought down, the mankind can salvage whatever is left of this planet from certain destruction. There are number of activities in an office which contribute to its carbon footprint and these activates need to be curbed.
For starters, you may bring down the volume of paper being used at your office. Start using only recycled paper from now on and make sure that you develop a culture of paper-less working in your office. By progressively decreasing the volume of recycled paper, you will be able to make sure that people print less and use less paper. For whatever usage remains, only use recycled paper. Remove all non critical printers as well. This will ensure that the number of trees being chopped to make paper is reduced.
Along with cutting down on paper usage and using only recycled pages, develop a policy paper reuse. Make sure that whatever printers remain are set to print duplex by default i.e. The printer prints on both sides of the page unless specifically told not to do so. Ask employees to reuse same page for taking all allied notes. But above all, ask your employees to think before they print.
Next thing is air conditioning and heating. Heating and air conditioning systems are very energy hungry and they also release various carbon based effluents. Control on them can result in significant reduction in the carbon footprint of your workplace.
In most areas, the workplaces are designed in such a manner that they are heavily air conditioned or artificially heated. If you are in a totally unfriendly climate, this might be a necessity. Otherwise you can control the environment by a number of other means. Have your walls insulated. Make sure you have windows set appropriately and run the heating or air conditioning on intermittent basis. Say, run the system for two hours then break for an hour then run it for two more hours and take another hour long break and so on.
There is a another, very important reason for you to bring down your carbon footprint. Both of the tips mention above can help you save a significant amount of money. Paper is expensive and so is energy. By saving on both fronts, any office can significantly bring down its operational expenses. If you are in the facility management department of your office, you must immediately write up a business case for bringing down the carbon footprint of your workplace.
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