Green Tips

There is so much we can do, personally and within our organizations to help conserve and be environmentally friendly.

This continues from my first post, Going Green – Where to Begin?

Where did we start? We started off in the one place most of us have, our office.  It seemed like the right place, the place we spend a lot of time, and with a few modifications to our thoughts about recycling, we could make an immediate difference.

Office Supplies

The next logical step was office supplies and surprisingly enough, researching office supplies was actually very simple.  Organizations like Staples and Office Depot are making it easier for their customers to locate good quality, Eco-Friendly products on their websites:

• Staples – Eco Easy
• Office Depots – Your Greener Office

There are many eco-friendly options today.  Here are a few ideas we have implemented:

• Instead of using a disposable tape dispenser, get one you can refill.
• Post it notes, try the ones from recycled paper.
• Replace colored file folders, with natural ones, eliminating the dyes.
• Using only natural colored shipping boxes
• Eliminate paper cups by using stoneware
• Eliminate self service packets, like sugar, creamer. Use full size products.
• Consolidate office product deliveries into one shipment. Reduces delivery fuel, shipping costs.

Many suppliers offer free shipping if you order meets a certain requirement.  Both Office Depot and Staples offers free delivery on orders $50 or more.

Repurposing is another good idea. Those boxes you receive products in, reuse any clean and presentable boxes again. We replaced our styrofoam peanuts by reusing our shreaded paper. Of course these ideas will not work for businesses that have significant shipping, ours is minimal, but it opens up the idea of Repurposing.

There is much more we can do, this is just a start in our office.

The above examples, we are doing in our office.  Do you have any other Eco-Friendly ideas, product suggests for office supplies? What were the results? Did they match up to the expectations of your old favorites?  Were they more expensive?

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If we were to reply only on the headlines, in mainstream media, press or the blogosphere, it is apparent that going green continues to be a very hot-button topic.

There is no end to the information that can be found and it can be overwhelming to say the least.  First question, where to start? Where to begin researching? Which area should we tackle first? If you are not sure, you are not alone.

I wanted to know what small to medium business could do to implement easy and meaningful “green processes” to help reduce their carbon footprint on the environment.  What about home offices, which are a growing trend as part of telecommuting, which helps reduce an individual’s carbon footprint, through reduction or elimination of daily commuting to and from a employer.

Where to start? Need ideas? Join an Eco-Friendly group on LinkedIn, Facebook or a host of other social networks.  These groups have thousands of members, all willing to help other member’s source products that work.

I joined a group on LinkedIN , called GreenBiz .  On their website I found a publication called “State of Green Business 2008 “, a 64 page publication about companies going green.

It contains lots of helpful information and ideas.  It also shows there is much to celebrate and still much more work to do to integrate environmental thinking into operations of organizations.

We started in the office and we will be sharing those experiences in our Green Tip series.

Have your or your organization began to go green? What area did you decide to change first? What changes did you make personally?  What changes have taken place within your organization?

Additional Links

• GreenBiz
• State of Green Business 2008
• Lets Go Green – Eco Friendly Products
• Flex Your Power (California)

We encourage you to share, any of our posts that you find interesting and useful.  Please feel free to repost portions or the entire post, but please link back to blog.einnoventions.com‘s article, and give our team credit. Thank you! This notice excludes use for profit.

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Timing is interesting. In the middle of this blog post, I received a interesting “Tweet” from a friend on Twitter, @baldeagle. He sent a link to a blog post, posing the question “could higher gas prices be good for us?”.

I am a firm believer, there is a bright side to everything, if you take the time to look. These folks were doing just that. This particular blog is geared to Weight Loss And Fitness Challenge, not the effects on business, yet their creativity inspired me. These bloggers not only found ways to conserve fuel, save money, benefits to the environment, but also found benefits to their own health.

Individuals are finding positive methods to cope with increased fuel costs, so what are companies doing to reduce fuel and other national resources?

Some of the best and most brilliant ideas have come from the most surprising places. So, I ask you, in the Blogosphere, what are you and your companies doing to help save resources, reduce costs and deal with the rising cost during these harsh economic times?

I look forward to new and fresh ideas !

We encourage you to share, any of our posts that you find interesting or useful. Please feel free to repost portions or the entire post, but please link back to blog.einnoventions.com‘s article, and give our team credit. Thank you! (This notice excludes use for profit)

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