How Smart Businesses Go Green

by Paul L. Nettles

How Smart Businesses Go Green

When it comes to going green at work, you have two main options: green options that can legitimately save your company money and ones that won’t. The good news is that even with the green options that will cost your firm, you can utilize them in PR campaigns that could pay off mightily down the road. Let’s take a look at a few common sense things you can do around the office to Go Green and stay green.

Power is money

Ask any CEO what the one of the biggest costs each and every year is, and they will likely tell you the power bill. From florescent lights to computers, the average office sucks up the juice at an astonishing rate. The first thing most offices do when they want to Go Green is replace those energy munching florescent light bulbs with energy efficient versions, but that’s just the beginning. All personal computers now have energy saver modes that move the computer and monitor into a “sleep mode” if no one touches the keyboard within a period of time. On the surface, it doesn’t sound like that big of an energy saver, but if you have an office with dozens or even hundreds of computers, it can make a remarkable difference.

Upgrades are key

Often times, many offices will try to save money by hanging on to technology long after it has become obsolete. Not only does this practice just decimate worker moral, it can play havoc with your power bill, too. If your company is still using archaic CRT style monitors, you are using significantly more energy than you would be if everyone was using flat panel displays. Many older computers don’t have power or energy saving settings so you are losing money there, as well. You may have to pay a bit extra up front to replace some of your older computers, printers, fax machines and copy machines, but you will save a bundle on your company’s power bill.

Cut down on business travel

Proprietors of restaurants and hotels don’t want to hear this, but business travel not only costs businesses a fortune every year, but it is also extremely unfriendly to the environment. The amount of carbon put into the atmosphere with every plane flight is staggering, and with the sharp increase in the price of oil, driving or even taking the train to business meetings is now impractical. Use technology to teleconference with other offices, locations and clients. Have webcams installed in meeting room so that groups can see each other and communicate with no problem whatsoever. If you really think about it, business travel is an antiquated practice that just doesn’t make any sense anymore.

Look into working from home

More and more businesses are making it possible for some of their employees to work from home at least part of the time. Of course, it depends on what your business does and what you have your people working on, but since so many people have powerful computers with Internet connections in their home, the groundwork is there for people to work from home if possible.

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