by Suz Neave

Created on: July 20, 2008

So, just how environmentally friendly is your workplace, really? Some of us head to the office in the morning in our cars, sit down at our desk, lit up by the florescent lights overhead. Our desk is cluttered with paper. Still on automatic pilot we switch on out computer and printer. The office symphony begins with the coffee machine gurgling in the background, quickly accompanied the whirring of the fax machine, promptly the photocopier springs into life. The sound of endless copies of that all important memo that has just come through from the head office completes the melody. The day hasn't even really started yet and we have already consumed vast quantities of the earth's resources. 30,000 reams of paper are used every 5 minutes. According to the Carbon Trust, 131kg of carbon dioxide is created per square metre of office space per annum.

We don't have to be a large corporate business, running a huge multi-story complex to be responsible for this unwitting consumption. Even as I sit here at my computer in my office (as I run my business from home), my printer sits on my desk on standby. Just in case its called into action at any moment to print out yet another version of my document for proofreading. The eventual fate of that paper? Well, either to join the various piles of mounting paper waiting to be filed or . . . the bin (fortunately as I work from home, it does actually end up in my compost heap!).

Computers were supposed to end the paper cluttered office, arguably they create more. Not only do they generate vast amount of waste paper, they feed into resources to make them and to power them, adding to our actually not so environmentally friendly office after all.

So what can be do minimize our consumption of these resources, other than giving up work of course and spend the rest of our days lying on the beach somewhere. Well here are some tips to help conserve resources in our workplace:

1) PAPER - The use of paper, generally can not be avoided, but not everyone needs to receive paper copies of memos circulating the office. Maybe just print one out and post it on a notice board. If its important that you know that everyone has seen it, leave a provision for them to sign their name to acknowledge that they've read it. Information that is needed for meetings could be emailed to people and then presented on a powerpoint presentation, or laptops could be taken to the meeting room and relevant documents displayed on their screens. Ensure that documents are set

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