Earth be Glad at Work
Autumn is the time for starting new projects conceived on summer holidays, sharpening pencils, making resolutions, learning to do things in new ways: so there's no better time to go green at work. Many things we do at work are routine. This means that once you get into eco-friendly habits you will continue to make a difference without having to think about it. So before the autumn meetings and papers overwhelm you, see if you can change the way you do some things.
Paper habits
We use a lot of it. So much of it, in fact, that the paper cycle is responsible for almost 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Paper manufacture causes air and water pollution and takes up a lot of fertile land. The earth has paid a lot to provide it to you, so treat it as precious.
The greenest member of the office is not the one who puts the most in the recycling bin: it's the one who makes the fewest trips to the stationary cupboard. Each ream of paper you get out results in about 5kg of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (a sustainable level is about two tonnes per person per year).
There are lots of ways to reduce the amount you use. With a bit of practice, you can print double-sided and two pages to a sheet on most printers. The print will be no smaller than in a book, and it will be quicker to print, once you've got the knack, and take a quarter of the filing space. Read emails on-screen. Keep half-used paper to print anything you're only going to read once, like drafts. Any bits that aren't good enough for re-using in the printer, tear into quarters for phone messages.
Energy habits
Workplaces waste huge amounts of energy: lights and computers stay on all night, thermostats are set to require summer dresses in winter, and monitors, photocopiers and water coolers constantly contribute to climate change with a gentle standby hum and glow. Each unused appliance and empty meeting room is running down the inheritance of future generations, and benefiting no-one. Become the one who switches off at night and turns down in summer.
Eating habits
What is your lunch wrapped in? A cardboard cup, a plastic bottle, foil, a can, or a specially-moulded plastic wedge? Invest in a mug, a plastic sandwich box, and a glass, and you won't just have helped solve the problem of landfill. Huge quanties of energy is generated just to manufacture packaging, even if it is recycled. The material has been produced, or extracted, somewhere on the planet. Changing the way you eat at work is a way to tread more lightly on many parts of the earth, every day.
Travelling habits
How far do you commute in a year? Changing the way you travel to work will have a significant impact on your contribution to climate change, because you do it twice a day, every day. It doesn't have to be a hair-shirt discipline of shivering at bus stops. Working at home one day a week cuts your contribution to congestion by a fifth. Since I discovered the bicycle, I look forward every morning to seeing how the light is playing on the canal and how the young swans are growing. I've also discovered the most practical clothes for cycling are short skirts. Who said being green at work had to be no fun?
Salt and light
If you want to get more people involved, and also to make serious financial savings for your organisation, the Green Office Action Plan published by Friends of the Earth is an excellent way to do this. You can order it for £20 from Friends of the Earth Scotland, Lamb's House, Burgess Street, Leith, EH6 6RD stating code G19X or visit www.green-office.org.uk.
Eleanor Todd, Cornerstone, October 2005
Earth be Glad >> At Work