How green is your office (Part 3) – the final instalment
For those of you who are stoically following this ongoing diatribe about being green in your office you will be undoubtedly relieved that this is the final part of the green trilogy.
After explaining in Part 2 that the best way to be green with your utilities is to turn off your lights rather than wait for the power companies to become environmentally conscientious, I am pleased to say that you can be green in your office and it does not have to cost the earth! Excuse the pun.
In almost all legal practices the main areas of regular overhead expenditure is on stationery, printing, and telecoms. The final area, telecoms, is already pretty green – it stops you having to go out in your fuel guzzling, CO2 emitting vehicle, and a phone call is pretty light on electricity usage. The other two areas mentioned, stationery and print, have great scope to be even greener.
Regardless of which stationery company you use they will have an environmental range – if they have not told you what they can do just ask them. You no longer have to put up with greyish mottled recycled paper, cardboard pens, or brittle rulers, the new ranges are of a comparable quality to your existing products and at a similar price. Here are a few things you can do today -
- Look at how the supplier delivers the products, do they use recyclable bags or cardboard boxes that are then thrown away?
- Can you reduce the number of orders you make to once or twice a week rather than every day? Your supplier will do as you tell them so if you everyone reduced their orders that in turn would reduce the number of delivery van journeys.
- Does your supplier offer to take away used paper to be recycled? Will this paper be introduced back into their product ranges?
- Ask your printer whether they have a range of recycled papers that you could print your letterheads on or recycled card for your business cards and corners. Again you will be surprised at the quality available.
