A Green Audit - A Look At Your Business Through Grass-Tinted Specs

Once upon a time, businesses would brag about their charity work and involvement with community programmes, but Green issues are now top of the agenda. Whether it was the impact of Al Gores incredible documentary An Inconvenient Truth or the sudden realisation that our planet is running out of fossil fuels, companies are racing to prove that they are ecologically friendly. For many it is because they genuinely care and for some it is because they realise that it can be good for the marketing drive. Either way, the results are the same and the planet benefits (as do our great-great grandchildren). It is a question we have been pondering for some time now, how can we make our businesses more eco-compliant? Here are some ideas:

1. Share your journey
This is an easy one. It makes sense in times of soaring petrol costs, let alone the ever-growing hole in the Ozone. If you have a regular drive to work, is there any way you can share the journeys in with one of your colleagues? Sure, it can be a bit of a hassle from time to time, you might want to leave work earlier or get in later, but it should not be difficult with a little co-ordination and forward planning. And it will give you some time to do a bit of reading or extra sleeping on the days when you are not driving. A friend of mine started doing this last year and it has worked out a treat. He car-shares twice a week, which is a lot better than nothing at all, and his wife is happier because as a result of agreeing to a fixed time with the car-share buddy, he never stays too late in the office!

2. Move your office
One way to really reduce the commute to work is to base yourself at home. Even if you did it for a day a week you could suddenly find that you have bought yourself a few extra hours and you could double the green benefits by doing some gardening and planting a few seeds during that time! Or you could stay in bed for a few more minutes. Either way, a zero-distance journey is better for the planet and you will save a few pounds along the way.

3. Let your cup runneth over
Some firms are getting brave about this one; banning foam cups. The same goes for plastic cups. Try doing a count one day, how many times do you go to the water cooler, pick up a fresh cup and put it in the bin again? What about a disposable cup from the coffee machine? This eco-gesture is pretty simple and you will need the following items to cultivate a green drinking habit; one plastic bottle, one thermos cup, two labels and one marker pen. You have got it; write your name on the stickers, put them on the side of the containers, and from this day on try to drink from the reuseable cups as much as possible.

4. Monitor your usage
Do you even want to know how much energy is wasted by hundreds of thousands of computer monitors being left on overnight? I mean, there are huge amounts of energy wasted when people leave home televisions on standby when they leave the house, so can you imagine what it must be like for computer monitors? It has been estimated that in the USA, GBP7.5 million worth of energy is wasted from leaving computers switched on. Oops. When you go home, turn it off.

5. Big Green Feet: know your footprint
Some people say that ignorance is bliss. Whilst it is certainly an easy way to live, it is not necessarily the best policy. A carbon footprint is defined as follows; the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses emitted by a product during its full lifestyle. Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, explain that there is a primary and secondary footprint. Our primary one is the measure of fossil fuels we burn directly (ie from driving, flying, or heating our offices) and the secondary footprint is the amount of fuels burned during the various stages from the manufacture to the disposal of the products we use. We can think twice before buying a pint of milk that is packaged in plastic and transported in from the other side of the country, milk in a glass bottle from a local dairy has to travel a shorter distance and is in a container that can be easily recycled. Easy stuff.

6. Fairtrade
Fairtrade is about improving working conditions for labourers, sustaining the businesses who create the products, sustaining communities and establishing fairer prices for all. The movement is about protecting smaller producers who have traditionally been in a very weak position; by establishing a fixed market rate for their product it means that they have a guaranteed income and greater control of their destiny. But there is something in it for us as well, we get to consumer our products with a clean conscience and know that we are doing our bit to help the people who are contributing to our lifestyle. So if you have not yet switched your office to Fairtrade, now is the time to start!

7. A grassroots green-board
There is no shortage of ideas for making your office more green. It might be switching your lightbulbs to energy-saving ones, turning down the heating by a couple of degrees and encouraging people to wear jumpers, using a freecycle website for getting rid of old office furniture (freecycle is a website where you post details of things you want to get rid of and people can take them for free if they are prepared to collect), or changing your offices energy supplier to an eco-conscious provider. Better still, keep the whole thing grassroots and why not put up a noticeboard for people to write their own ideas down? Organisations often have a lot more inherent wisdom than they take credit for and it is worth giving your colleagues the opportunity to share their own ideas; this way they will have more ownership over them, feel even more committed, and there is a greater chance of having a positive impact on the planet. And if you come up with any world-changing ideas, let us know!

Here are some websites to help you along with greening your business;
Green shopping - http://www.greenrewards.co.uk
Carbon footprint calculator: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/
Fairtrade foundation: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

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