Sunday, February 13, 2011

Environmentally Friendly Offices

By Mollie Cross


When it comes to being environmentally friendly offices are some of the worst performing buildings in the world. Thanks to their heavy use of paper and electronics the amount of waste they produce is staggering and has caused uproar in the green community. Many serviced offices are now being transformed to become more environmentally friendly and energy efficient to reduce the carbon footprint caused by the buildings.

The biggest problem that all offices face is their huge consumption of paper. Billions of tonnes of paper are used every year by offices and it is estimated that 90% of this paper is currently thrown away to landfill sites rather than being recycled. One of the most significant breakthroughs has been the advent of technology that reduces the need for paper. Many modern offices are taking advantage of cloud computing and electronic communication as well as storing important files on computer storage instead of filing cabinets.

However all of this technology also comes with its own problems as they consume electricity throughout the day. Technology is fortunately becoming more energy efficient but there is still a long way to go. Many offices make use of large servers and desktop PCs that use a lot of energy. Laptops help to save energy and also electricity bills as they are generally consume much less power.

Lighting is also a major factor in the inefficiencies and waste that an office produces. The vast majority of offices still make use of high power fluorescent lighting that is not energy efficient and these offices also tend to leave the lighting switched on overnight. Investing in energy efficient bulbs for an office will be worthwhile and save the business a vast amount of money over time.

With the number of environmentally friendly office initiatives available more and more companies are creating a green policy in the workplace and having employees interact with the scheme to make sure everyone does their bit for the environment.




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