Paper Usage and Carbon Footprint

If one person can change things to reduce their Carbon Footprint and make a positive difference on the environment, imagine the difference a whole office can make.

The things we do in our everyday lives have a huge impact on our environment. Whether we realise it not, everyday, we are adding to the problem of global warming.

The idea of this article is to offer some tips which can help you reduce your office carbon footprint and help the environment by not adding to the global warming issue.

Did you really need to print that?

So, you’re sitting at your desk and receive an email, you decide you want a copy of the email, so you print it off. Was that really necessary?

Statistics show that we use over 11 million sheets of paper a year. That’s a lot of paper!

By reducing the amount of paper you use for printing, you are not only saving money, but you are having a positive effect on the environment, because the less paper we use, the less trees need to be cut down and the more oxygen we have.

Whose turn is it to water the plant?

Talking about trees and oxygen, by having a plant or two in your office, you are in fact helping your office environment.

Imagine all those systems running in your office; computer, fax, printers, photocopiers and scanners, all these things make the air too dry, so by having plants in your office, you are in fact increasing the humidity in the air.

Printer cartridge has run out again

So what do you do when the printer is ready for a refill? In fact, the question should be, what do you do with the empty cartridge?

In the last 10 years, 250 million print cartridges have ended up in either landfill sites or have been incinerated. It would take 1000 years for one cartridge to biodegrade.

With the amount of cartridges thrown away, if laid out, they would stretch across the radius of the moon!

There is now no excuse for anyone to throw an empty cartridge in the bin. More often than not, when you open the box of a new cartridge, there is a bag supplied for you to recycle the old one. All you need to do is put the empty cartridge in the bag and post it off for recycling.

Did you turn off your computer before you left?

Leaving your computer switched on, leaving the lights on, leaving the windows open and leaving office equipment on standby all burn up unnecessary energy.

All computers come with a power saving device, so there is no excuse to leave your computer on standby when you leave work for the day.

By changing your office equipment to power down systems, you are making massive savings to the energy we waste everyday.

You can also change your light bulbs to energy saving light bulbs. Compact fluorescent light bulbs will greatly help you reduce the amount of energy you use in your office on a daily basis.

Did you know that by leaving a window open overnight; you are wasting enough energy to drive a small car for 35 miles?

It isn’t necessary to leave windows open or lights on in an office overnight, or over a weekend for that matter. So makes sure the lights are off, the equipment is off and no windows are left open when you leave your office.

Whose turn is it to do the stationary order?

Did you know, in the UK we throw out enough rubbish every 2 hours to fill up the Albert Hall?



There is now a wide range of products that we can buy that come from recycling, so it isn’t always necessary to buy brand new products that have not been recycled.

Next time you are flicking through the stationary catalogue, watch out for products that you can buy that have been recycled. Buying recycled office stationary and equipment helps reduce the amount of rubbish we need to throw away, which means less rubbish ends up in landfills.

So there you have it. A few tips to help you help your environment which gives you an environmentally friendly office.