Actions Speak Louder Than Words...

By Anikka Wattem

I've often felt the need to do something big and bold to change my office into being more sustainable. Although we are going through a process to analyze our sustainability, it is very slow moving and often very frustrating. Yet I know I can't change the procedures and policies of our organization on my own.

I am glad and lucky to work from a very forward thinking non-profit organization with lofty goals even in these tough economic times. But as mom always said "actions speak louder then words"; in that spirit here are a few actions you can take yourself:

1. Bring a cloth towel to your office kitchen and take charge of keeping it clean. I must admit from what I hear the keeping it clean part is essential. People won't use it if they suspect it's full of germs! I can just imagine the number of paper towels this would save in our office. It would save money and trees.

2. Print/Copy Double sided. If you can set your print settings to default to this then even better (although I wouldn't recommend changing the whole office without a discussion). If you print everything double sided you'd use half as much paper. Many people don't even know how to print double sided. You might become the office techie and end up training everyone how to do this. And if you don't know how already then run a quick search on the search engine of your choice.

3. Use "garbage" paper as scratch paper or for unimportant printing. So many times people print more copies then they need or don't notice a mistake until after they print. So much paper is wasted this way in our office. I bet if you start doing this you'll never need a new notepad again! I collected our "oops" print jobs for just 1/2 a day and had enough scratch paper to last me at least 6 months.

4. Put machines in sleep at night. Some automatically do so but others do not. Volunteer to be the one to turn them off and on as to not inconvenience someone else. Eventually it will just become habit in your office that the machines should be off just like the lights should. I promise it wont' be your responsibility forever!

5. Carpool or use public transportation. Talk to your neighbors and coworkers. Someone may live closer then you realized and it may be little or no inconvenience for you to carpool. And in many cities you'll get to use the carpool lane! Not only will you be influencing others by the discussion but your spreading the green by inviting someone to car pool that may not have thought of it before.

As always these are just a few ideas. I'm sure some of you are much more creative then I am -- see what you can come up with!