Green Options

Working at home sounds great, doesn’t it? With the average Los Angeles commute topping 30 minutes each way, think of what you could do with that extra time. And think of what the environment could do without all of those emissions.

A new report from the World Wildlife Fund indicates that non-manufacturing companies could cut their carbon footprint in half by allowing telework. With more and more companies looking to reduce their eco-impact, a shift towards telecommuting would be a big step forward.

But what about all of those meetings?

Want to help green up your office?

Manager not listening?

1.  Try these suggestions.
2.  Frame them in a money-saving language.
3.  Stand back.
4.  Watch pointy-haired-boss’s ears perk up.

• Substitute travel with videoconference or a web-based tool for getting together. Not only will you be ‘back in the office’ 5 minutes after your meeting is over (ahem, productivity…), you will be able to stay in your own bed, at your own home, with your family.  It will also save your company hotel, airfare, cabs, and meals/entertainment costs.  Don’t have videoconference?  Try Webex.  You can watch others on camera, and listen real-time.
• Shut down computers at night. Now this one is probably trickier than it first appears.  Talk to your IT department.  Night time is usually when they like to do system-wide updates, and they don’t like having to run around and fix people’s computers when they’re having problems because the person’s computer was not available for system-wide fixes at night.  But work with your IT folks and let them know what you’d like to do.  At the very least, pick one night per week that everyone has to leave their computers on, and have the IT department send out an email out on that day to let everyone know to keep their computers on.

Tips, tips, tips, tips… everyone’s got ‘em (including us). Yesterday, our friends at AboutMyPlanet.com went boldly where few of us in the green web have gone before with the publication of their Go Green Revolution ebooks. Your Life and My Office Handbook bring together a wealth of tips and practices and create (according to AMP) “an easier way for people to see how they can go green.”

I just got copies of the books yesterday, so have only had a chance to flip through them. Fortunately, they’re organized to make such flipping a useful activity: while either book could be read from cover to cover, the division of chapters in each makes it easy to find the exact information you want.  I particularly like the layout of Your Life, as it combines substantive sections on greening your home (inside and out) and lifestyle with short, self-explanatory tips set off in text boxes. My Office Handbook doesn’t just look at paper and energy use at work, but uses the framework of the typical workday: getting ready in the morning, traveling to work, and even eating lunch. The information I read looks solid, and I can definitely see the advantages (especially for “green newbies”) of having all of this information centralized in one place.

You might be more green than the definition of the word at home but does this carry through to when you step into the doors of your office? Not according to Envirowise, British sustainability business experts who says that good domestic environmental practices do not necessarily translate to the workplace.

Think for a moment, if you wanted to make the maximum impact in greening one product area, what would it be? Cars may come to mind first, but that requires a significant commitment and investment by the buyer.  While it can and will make a positive impact, there’s an area that’s much more ubiquitous and may not even register on the radar for some - office supplies.

Think about how much you use. Think about how much a company of 50 uses. 500. To use supplies that are less impactful, or perhaps even eliminating the damage they typically do, has enormous potential.

It’s this thinking that led Gil Yaron, once a lawyer focused on shareholder activism and socially responsible investing to create Vancouver based FrogFile in 2006. In his work leading up to this, he saw that many companies were interested in greening their office operations, but they didn’t quite know how or where to do that. Then once they did know what they wanted to do, there wasn’t a place to get what they needed.

FrogFile seeks to be a remedy for this quandary. And yet, you might say, green office supplies seem to be everywhere these days, both online and in office supply stores large and small. What does FrogFile contribute, and how do they stand out from this growing chorus?

I just ran across this announcement,Corporate Express to Award $5,000 Office Product Shopping Spree in Ecoffice Makeover Contest on a website I like to read, Green VC.

This contest, open to all U.S. businesses, will award one winning company with a $5,000 shopping spree on the company’s online Ecoffice Source catalog.

Since our readers tend to really, really like our “greening your office” posts, I thought I’d see if [...]

Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the surprising journeys of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Here’s a sneak peek at the desk you threw away.

How can a mahogany desk, made of slow-growing hard wood plundered from the Amazon, be eco-friendly?

When it’s re-used.

Often, the greenest consumer route is not buying new products made with Earth-friendly methods but rather scoring used products made with traditional, possibly heinous methods. Reduce, reuse, then recycle.

This rule of thumb certainly applies to office furniture. Unlike energy-consuming products such as appliances, furniture is somewhat innocuous to the environment during that period between factory and landfill known as “in use.” The impacts on indoor air quality, however, are like Britney: Not that innocent.

Terracycle is most known for their reuse of plastic soda bottles as packaging for their Worm Poop gardening products. While these initial products are definitely to be commended, it’s their recent move into office and school products in conjunction with Office Max that stands to make an even more profound impact.

Many people spend a great deal of time working in offices, and to have a mainstream supplier actively promoting awareness about the value of using green office products will likely lead to many people that may not have previously found relevance in their lives to consider more deeply what they choose to purchase for their office, and perhaps other parts of their lives.

Why Office Max?

Why exactly did Terracycle, the scrappy company (literally, reusing scrap production waste in some products) decide to partner with the massive Office Max? Listen up green startups, this is important: They are able to go beyond their youthful  excitement about all things green, and hear from people with decades of experience what consumers are actually buying, where they want things to be greener, and where the most impact can be made. And, having a large, deeply ingrained distribution network, Office Max can also allow Terracycle to more confidently venture into making new products, with a sharply reduced time on the development cycle. This plus being able to produce larger numbers right away leads to  being able to keep their prices at an everyday level, so that a broad segment of the population can and will try them.

Review of  innovative green office products from Terracycle

So where does that lead Terracycle? It leads them to start with 7 new products, and have several more coming soon, including paper made from Mango leaves. More on that below. I had the pleasure of trying many of them out, and here’s what I found:

Before you can open your doors for business, you need an office. Stocking your office with needed supplies is a great opportunity to show your green side and make sustainable choices. From furnishings to paper clips, there are eco-friendly options out there for every office need.

Whether you’re working from home or from a downtown high-rise, you can conserve paper, reduce energy use, and produce less waste by keeping the environment in mind for all your office purchases. In this article, I’ll share ideas for stocking your green office and sources of green office products.

Starting a green business (or making an existing one greener) can often seem like a daunting task. As I start my own business, I am compiling a mental checklist of all small, simple things I can do in my day-to-day operations to lighten my footprint on the planet. By building environmentally conscious practices into my work flow from the start, I hope to start off on the right foot and keep taking steps toward sustainability.

There’s always more you can do, but the most important thing is to do something! Baby steps in the right direction are certainly better than going backwards or not moving at all. Thankfully, many green business practices are not only eco-friendly, but they’re friendly on the company budget as well. So even if the benefits to the planet are hard to see, benefits to your bottom line may be more visible.

Since I’m a habitual list-maker, here’s a handy list of ten simple things you can do to make your business a bit more sustainable every day.

This post is the first in a series of roundups I’ll be doing featuring articles from our community journals and forums. To create your own journal click on the “Get a Journal Now” button at Green Options. com. To contribute to our forums, click on the “community” tab on the top right side of the Green Options home page.

Come join the discussion!

All entrepreneurs are interested in saving money and operating efficiently.

Eco-entrepreneurs also want to do so in a way that benefits the planet.

Perhaps because our companies’ missions, products and services are creatively and often elegantly eco, we find unique ways of doing that.

Take a look at some of Green Options ecopreneurs’ ideas on how to create an eco-office!