Friday discussion topic - how Green is your office?

[ed_pete]

How enviromentally-friendly is your office ?

On my own subjective scale from 1 to 10 I'd give mine about 2?.

Bad

PC and printers are left on 24/7

Office lights are left on - in a previous office we had movement detectors on timers that would swith them off automatically in the evening

"Green" power supplier - I suspect not.

Recently introduced a small number of car parking spaces

Good

Recycling facilities for paper

Recycling facilities for other waste but not policed and abused by staff

Cycle storage and changing/shower facilities for cyclists

A-rated fridges in staff kitchens (weak one)

[Keef]

Have to admit mine s pretty good, all of your bads ould be in the good list, but only because it was all refubed a year ago.

Shame they don't care about the staff working there though, bloody germ farm!

[ratty]

Recycling is pretty much all we are good at. Lights go off I spose which helps. In our houses we are awful, with the heating stuck on at maximum even through the summer! Gutted!

[lozzyloz]

What or who is a green energy supplier? Do the big co's generate a percentage from sustainable sources like Hydro? Apart from installing an expensive wind turbine and solar panel on the roof (which won't power a lot and takes at least 15 years to recoup cost) what are the practical alternatives?

[KalamityKel]

Now it's funny you mention "green" my boss is wearing a lovely brightly coloured shirt this morning... it's all a bit too loud for a Friday morning especially when every is now glowing green lol

Anyways... back to the environment... we're prob quite bad for certain things but I guess as there's only 9 of us that make up our office I doubt we, on the greater scheme of things, make impact.

[snorky]

my employers are rapacious scum, but have macde a few token./ well opublicised office moves to embrace the planet

sadly, their multi faced business interested include strip mining & soya planatations in newly cleared Brazilian rainforest

so a bit rubbish really

[annaj]

I work in a hospital, so hopelessly un-green.

In clinical areas the lights, computers and technical equipment all have to be on 24 hours, because they're being used.

The really scary thing is the waste. All clinical waste, anything that has come into contact with a patient mostly gloves dresisngs and equipment, is incinerated. With infection control becoming increasingly important, more and more equipment is designed to be single use and disposable, so waste is increasing. To reduce the amount of waste that's incinerated, "household" waste is supposed to go into separate black bins, but there are never enough black bins. In addition there is a huge amount of laundry each day, all washed at high temperatures.

When you start to think about the environmental cost of a hospital it's staggering, but what's the alternative? It comes down to a quesiton of the needs of the patients versus the needs of the world. Would you accept a higher chance of cross-contamination and hosptial acquired infection in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the hospital? Probably not.

[atila the gooner]

The lights go out above a work station automatically when a desk is not being used as they are activated by body heat. Is that green?

[mockney piers]

I guess it depends on what uses more energy, the light bulb or the heat sensor?

[benjaminty]

Body heat? are you sure? not movement sensors / infra red? Our lights (my clients lights) go off when no one moves.... wave an arm in the air and hey presto...

hmmmm There's not been much movement this morning for some reason... so nice and dimly lit :)

I'm sad to say that my company is shockingly ungreen .. what colour is the opposite of green by the way.. ?

[mockney piers]

Red isn't it?

My office is pretty red, it has recycling bins that they shove in the normal rubbish. They've begun encouraging us to switch off lights in the loos and shut down pcs at night though.

And it's DEFINITELY not communist.

[AllyCat]

I work in publishing so there is a huge amount of paper wastage here - however we do have recycling bins in every office but just for paper... would like there to be plastic recycling too but sadly there is not...

By the way, I've just discovered a great recycling place that will recycle old CD's / DVD's/ CD-R's / cassette tapes and VHS tapes - you have to send the items to them but at least they put them to some use and they are not filling landfill sites.. if any one is interested the website is:

http://www.thelaundry.biz/

Our office manager is co-odinating a collection of all our unwanted DVD's etc and we'll be sending a big batch over... just hope the carbon footprint of the van taking them there doesn't outweigh the benefits of recycling!

[Nero]

Mine's about 6.5/10. We have recycling bins on every floor near the lifts for plastic, cans, mobile phones, CDs, batteries, DVDs. We have green plastic bags for paper and magazines in every office, as well as bins for plastic and cans. We have a sink and a kettle and people have their own mugs. Most people switch off their computers and screens when they go, much more so than about three years ago. Toners and cartridges are recycled. Lighting can be lowered. There is double glazing and blinds. Canteen scraps are recycled (I think). There is a very small car park and there are bicycle racks. There is a solar panel on the roof, with a display in the lobby telling us how much energy is being saved through its use. But people still prefer to get the heating whacked up rather than wear an extra pully. Nero

[BarryRoad]

We're pretty good on the recycling and lights off action. We all use laptops so they get turned off and locked up at night. We're by Southwark tube, so there's no parking, and I think only one person in the whole office drives in. (One director rides motorbikes which is better than one person in a car, right?).

I'm currently taking steps to make sure all of our stationery / letterhead / biz cards / collateral docs, etc are printed using sustainable printing techniques and paper. Oh, and as part of our collateral I'd like to send clients cloth bags to use and re-use, but haven't put that forward to the boss yet.

There is a small issue with the girls constantly turning the heat up to the point where afternoons in the office are basically like a gap year in Borneo. Well, it's not all their fault. It's a big open plan warehouse conversion with a rubbish air conditioning system that can heat and cool itself at the same time (working massively overtime, basically).

[SteveT]

All women I know need all rooms set at the temperature high enough to grow rubber.

Yet they survive better than men in cold conditions.

When the army lost a bunch of their super fit men on the moors, they had helicopters out with searchlights until they found them, because they keel over and die overnight.

When they lost a bunch of waafs nobody gave a monkeys, because women survive and are much more durable.

To get back to the original how green..... it is cool enough to need a sweater although it is centrally heated. I have made attempts to remove draughts by using filler around the skirting, and installing secondary glazing, and insulating the loft.

[KalamityKel]

Steve u certainly know some strange women!

Having thought a little further on the "greeness" of our office I think really we're not THAT bad. We recycle all our old print, printer/photcopier cartridges are disposed of properly, lights are only on during the day and that is mostly just in the cyrpt area, computers are off at the end of the day (except the mothership) and we unplug everything that doesnt need to b on as part of the general lock up... so fairly good mefinks