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Corporate citizens must consider their impact on the environment in order to thrive in the changing economy. As the importance of carbon credits, green technology and sustainability grows, companies must find ways to incorporate these philosophies into their business practices and strategies. However, with the current economical conditions it can be challenging to balance these considerations with saving money and saving jobs. The good news is, with thoughtful planning, incorporating green philosophies can reduce costs and ultimately may save jobs.

The key to success, is for both the company as a whole to make changes and for the individual employees to buy into the program. Everyone has to understand the new policies and procedures, why they are necessary, and to embrace them fully.

One of the greatest costs to the planet, for your average employee at work is power usage. Lighting, heating or cooling, PC's, telephones and a whole array of power sucking electronics place a huge burden on the power grid. Whether the employees reside in cube land, or are tucked away in cozy offices, they are sucking kilowatts, placing a strain on the planet, and the company's bottom line.

There are a number of relatively minor behavior changes that will have a dramatic and instant impact on power consumption. Generally they can be implemented quickly, easily and with little or no real impact on daily working practices.

Firstly, shutdown all PC's overnight. For the first few weeks someone will have to check that this is really being done. Often people are tempted to leave them running just to avoid the extended start up time at the beginning of the day. However, the powers savings are worth while, both in usage by the machine and the heating effect that scores of machines can have, particularly in air-conditioned buildings. If you completely shutting down is not appropriate, at least ensure all machines are put into standby mode. With an average work week of between forty and sixty hours, a PC left on is humming along sucking energy out of the national grid for approximately 120 unnecessary hours.

Screen savers may prevent screen damage, but that doesn't mean they are always a good idea. The most economical and effective screen saver option is to shutdown the monitor completely. In fact putting the machine into standby mode is even better. Proper configuration of the power settings, and a consistent effort to shutdown monitors rather than using goofy screen savers, can easily

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