This year Green Office Week is all about listening and knowledge sharing with the creation of this Big Green Crowdsourced Guide!

Thank you to everyone who has sent ideas our way. We’ve included as many as possible and with your help we believe we’ve created a huge source of inspiration that will help offices everywhere with their environmental efforts.

To kick start the week we asked our social media community to let us know what motivates them to be green.

Why not talk with your company about what changes you could make and what might motivate you and your colleagues to stick to these new ideas.

Making the place a better place for my boys is what motivates me. We recycle and use our bikes or walk when we can to help our carbon footprint. I use old office paper for kids to draw on and make things.

Ursula Watkin

When paper is needed try to make sure it is recycled with a high proportion of post-consumer content and minimal chlorine bleaching.

Accord Office

I would rather pay more for products that last longer & can be repaired rather than this throw away society we seem to have become. Makes me sad for future generations.

Shelley Jenner

I have 5 children, all grown up. I look forward to my own grandchildren and I want them to have a lovely world to grow up in. I want them to see skylarks and kestrels overhead, walk in meadows and blue-bell filled woods, paddle on clean beaches, eat blackberries from the bush. Every small step each of us makes, adds up to a great big whole so let's make sure as many of those steps are green as possible.

Gill Colling

When I see shopping bags attached to trees by the side of supermarkets, blown there by the wind,

Pictures of piled up land fills, all the things we have binned,

We need to think more of times to come, and the things we do

So that the earth will stand the ravages of time, and we keep it looking like new.

Jan Brad

I do wonder how this world will be when my daughter is my age. I'm motivated to be green, in the pledge for a better future.

Jade Caesar

In America they have thick paper bags that you can use for your grocery shopping. It would be great if we had that option at our supermarkets.

Lots of us use the reusable jute bags but when we forget them the only option is non biodegradable plastic bags. We need to think about living in a busy world and never having enough time balanced with caring for the planet we live on. Come on supermarkets, give us a paper option.

Lola Rose

Re-use your plantpots for planting.Amanda Cerasale

One thing I love is upcycling. I make jewellery and find copper wire salvaged from old washing machines etc really useful. Gill Colling

I have seen fuel poverty first hand, and how it creates both Child and Food Poverty. I know by simple green measures I can make a difference, and if we all took those simple measures then the difference would be huge.

John Kirby

We love recycling and upcycling - there is nothing more satisfying than making something new, fresh and useful out of old clothes, furniture etc.

Keeps the children entertained too while teaching them to be green.

Jackie Reader

When investing in coffee for your office, there's a serious debate between single serve pod solutions and bean to cup machines. Even George Clooney has weighed in. It turns out the choice is pretty clear, though, if you're looking to run a Green Office.

Bean to cup machines are better for the environment, ethically sourced, less expensive, easier to use, and produce a better cup of coffee with less clean up afterward.

Honest Coffees

http://www.honestcoffees.com/

After two days of Green Office Week we were starting to get lots of ideas from around the UK and by now businesses were able to start putting some of these into practice.

Put used teabags, coffee grounds and banana skins into an outdoor 'wormery' (wigglywigglers.com) and then use the newly created soil and 'worm wee' (liquid fertiliser) to benefit the grounds/garden for others to enjoy in work breaks.

Sally Stevens, Fabrications Quilting for You Magazine

Have a green bin in each kitchen area and big notices to encourage people to put their recyclable items in the green bin.

Julie O’Kane

Create a green message that appears on each PC at the start of the working day.

Anonymous

Keep it simple, instead of taking a sheet of A4 every time you need to jot down a number\name etc, carry a small A5 or A6 notepad with you. First of all you will save paper and in three months when you need it again you will know it is in your notebook.

John Kirby

LED bulbs could save loads of money and are better for the environment.

Piotr KReview the office equipment you use regularly. If it is more than 3 years old it's likely a more energy efficient version is now available and often charities can benefit from the items you are replacing.

Rosie Brent

If you're printing multiple copies to share with people (after triple checking on screen first) - set printer to put two copies per A4 side and chop in half - still readable at A5 and halves the paper/toner usage.

Helen Tobin-Perry

Before you print a document, check, and double check that it's ready for printing... how many times do we print something, realise something is wrong, make the correction and then re-print?

So, have a checklist before printing of what to look out for – spelling, formatting, footers and headers correct, etc, do a print preview instead of quick print... and THEN when you are fully satisfied, hit print. Paper is a precious resource, don't waste it.

Jan Brad

In the office, you should be issued with your own personalised mug/glass, to help minimise the amount of disposable items used.

Hosking Associates can help your office with their Green Ribbon Audit.  This 50 point, one-day audit will see where your office is on the green spectrum and give you an action plan to go forward.  We can also help you implement any ideas you and your colleagues have during Green Office Week. 

For more information on how we can help, contact us on 020 3603 6466 or email our green team at info@hosking-associates.com .

Hosking Associates

Use Outlook or similar software to create task lists and reminders instead of writing notes on paper.

Annabel Spencer, Working Health Solutions Ltd

Use shredded waste paper as a packing material. Saves on disposal costs and saves valuable resources.

Anonymous

IT teams can set PCs to turn off automatically after a set period so they will not be on all night.

Anonymous

Reuse envelopes, recycle pens, have a competition for the department that does the most recycling. Ruby Homawala

So, they always say you should start planning early for Christmas and the task of organising this year’s office party has fallen to you. What’s more, there’s an important new addition to the brief in the email: “can you please make sure the restaurant/venue is sustainable. We don’t want to find ourselves back at that place where we we’ve been the last two years. Ok, so it was a bargain, but the waiter looked like he really couldn’t care when we asked if the turkey was free-range, didn’t know what a doggy bag was, and to be honest I don’t really blame him as it didn’t look like he was going to be getting a fair share of the tips.”

What do you look for and where do you start? The Sustainable Restaurant Association divides sustainability into three main sections or, as it says, pillars – Sourcing, Society and Environment, neatly illustrated in the examples in the previous: provenance of the food, fair treatment of staff and food waste respectively

Sustainable Restaurant Association

Beware greenwash – don’t fall for those website claims of ‘natural’, ‘fresh’ and seasonal. If you want to know about the restaurant’s sourcing policy, ask them! Some useful questions might be whether the turkey is free-range, what they mean by local and if the coffee is ethically certified, eg by Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance. If strawberries and asparagus feature on the menu – you know it isn’t the season to be jolly.

Going home presents? Catering for large parties at Christmas can be tough. There’s the potential for a whole lot of waste. So, what’s the restaurant’s policy on leftovers? Can you take them back to the office to enjoy the next day?

Festive cheer – You’d like the staff serving you to have a smile on their face too – so ask how the tips are shared and if the restaurant pays the living wage.

Season of goodwill – Is the restaurant signed up to a scheme like StreetSmart – adding a £1 donation to every bill that goes to support local homeless charities?

Look out for the SRA’s stars on the restaurant’s website, or check the SRA online guide for more than 4,000 possible venues.

During Green Office Week we’ve all been sharing the load. It’s much easier to achieve green results when you work together as a team. Whether you’ve got alarge workforce or a couple of co-workers, if you all pull together on your green goals you’ll start to see the difference.

Set-up a green team to meet regularly and keep track of green goals and targets

Have an informal internal discussion or meeting and address the issue of everyone ‘doing their bit’ for the environment

Etsy and Pinterest are loaded with green ideas to recycle and upcycle just about everything we put in the bin at home. You dont need to go out and buy new for the home, you can often find what you need around the home and with a little love you can create something beautiful, practical and unique. Our ancestors reused and reused and reused everything and so should we!

Charley

Reuse plastic bottles by putting small stones in the bottom and then put in the toilet cistern to save water when you flush.

Anonymous

Keep your old jiffy bags and other postage materials - these can easily be re-used with a label over the top to cover up old text

Anonymous

Label recycling bins very clearly and have plenty of them to make it easy for people to recycle.

We have plenty of separate bins for recycling both in the office and in the Museum itself. If people don't have to make too much effort to recycle they will do it!

TriciaThe Roald Dahl Museum

I work from home, my children learn from a very early age to reuse and recycle and they remind others to do so as well.Joy Bardell

I've found people actually want to be more green so encouraging people to offer ideas, recognising contributions and collaborating to achieve more has worked in my experience.Rosie Brent

The employer could encourage staff to adopt greener ways of getting to work, such as cycling or walking. The Bike to Work Scheme offers loans of up to £1000 for employees to buy a new bike. That's a monetary incentive but cycling is also a great way for people to get fitter and healthier. Working from home I don't have a commute but will try to use my bike when I can to get around or walk.

Simon Jones

I work in a medium sized hotel and I'm recycling the loo roll inserts by using them as degradable plant pots for tap root seeds such as sweet peas, peas, runner beans. Hoping to get them into our kitchen garden.

Samantha Eyres

Getting across the message that it's as cheap, if not cheaper, to use green products compared to non-eco products. Hence, as well as being good for the environment, it's good for your personal / corporate finances Anonymous

Planting ideas

If you really want to go green, why not do it literally? Bring in a plant to have on your desk. Plants are a great way to brighten up any office space – they also absorb indoor pollution and increase the flow of oxygen

Banner

Get a clean empty 2 litre milk carton with integral handle, when you turn the hot tap on use the bottle to collect the cold/cool water that it always starts off with, use for cleaning etc and a new one - use to dilute the screen wash!

Samantha Eyres

Use mugs instead of plastic cups for your tea/coffee. It's more fun to have your personal mug and you save a lot of plastic waste.

Petra B

Remove bins in the office, so at the end of the day you take out Your Own Rubbish and put it in the correct recycling receptacle.

CTH Techical Services, Basingstoke

Do not print every email you receive; set up on-line folders and file everything there. It is very easy to set up and everything is at your fingertips.

Denise Sutherland

I know that some that I have worked with, think that the green way takes more time, and therefore, because of time constraints and expedience, they will go for the "let's not worry about that now" attitude! So, I think the best way to motivate others is for them to see it is the quick and fast way. My suggestion yesterday was for people not to keep printing documents, but to get it right the first time, and print once.

If the printer was downstairs, or on another floor, they wouldn't keep printing documents, they would try to get it right first time. If the drinks machine expected you to bring your own cup, rather than dispense one for you (and any spare cups had to be got from a cupboard on another floor, etc) it would make a difference. I know people would view these things as an inconvenience, but after a while, these restrictions could be lifted once people got into the habit of being green!

Jan Brad

Lean is meaner than green

Did you know that having plants in the workplace not only keeps us healthier and less stressed but also makes us happier and more productive by as much as 15%? To quote the researchers concluding comments ‘Lean is meaner than green’ referring to the trend for lean offices.

(Nieuwenhuis, Knight et a Journal of Experimental Psychology)

 Make sure your office is green in all senses of the word.  efig Ltd, the Interior Landscapers Association www.efig.co.uk

We are committed to developing efficient waste management and recycling procedures. One of our initiatives removed all individual desk bins and we introduced clear and accessible recycling points on both floors of our office instead.  We did this back in 2009 but at the end of 2013 we updated them further, making them even more accessible to everyone – as well as creating a tidier and more professional look to the office!

It wasn’t cheap to set up but by partnering with First Mile, London’s leading recycling company, we can now monitor more easily what is recycled vs what is incinerated. And by benchmarking our efforts on a monthly basis via an intuitive recycling report, I’m able to feedback to staff on how we are doing and, more importantly, how we can improve. To date our average recycling rate from January 2014 – October 2014 is 94.6% – an increase of 18% since last year.Creating recycling facilities certainly requires investment in both time and money, so it requires commitment in the home, the office and from local and national government. But if we are to prevent recyclable materials being dumped in landfill surely it’s worth it? And then just maybe there’s hope for our planet.  I’d certainly like to think so.Read the full blog at http://www.rsconsulting.com/blog/?p=2484

RS Consulting

We are a small non-profit organisation with 5 branches across Worcestershire. We're led by volunteers and provide a free service that helps local families reduce landfill considerably whilst saving them heaps of money! We rely mainly on donations to keep the service running, alongside the odd grant and volunteer's own funds. 

We loan out trial kits of washable nappies, and help parents ditch the disposables, saving 0.86 tonnes of landfill PER CHILD! In the last 12 months, we loaned kits to 227 families and converted 92% of them to cloth nappies, helping to save over 150 tonnes of landfill. We are quite proud of that, as you can imagine. 

In the office we also do our bit to reduce, reuse and recycle. We do a lot of buying and selling of cloth nappies to help raise funds, so we always reuse jiffy bags and packaging. We always print back to back where possible and our children make good use of any paper that prints wrong, or that we have no further use for! We use Google docs to coordinate our work as much as possible rather than printing things out, and in fact 3 of our volunteers manage entirely without a printer (though I'm not sure how!) We also encourage our clients to return the leaflets that are in the info packs, having taken just the information they want, which saves waste, postage costs and printing costs for the companies who's information we give out. Worcestershire Nappy Advisory Service

When we do demo's, we encourage people to use their phones to take photos of the information, rather than taking a leaflet. They can easily then access the information whilst saving trees and reducing the chance of it being lost or recycled by mistake. Obviously giving out less leaflets saves on printing costs, transport and postage costs too. We do the same with business cards - photograph it rather than taking it and then recycling it later. Saves money too! 

We get through a lot of washing running a nappy library, as every kit needs to be washed at 60 degrees when returned for hygiene. We use Ecoeggs which are much more earth-friendly than detergents, and we also loan them out for clients to trial to encourage them to switch too. It also means that the water run off can be used to water plants as there are no chemicals in it. Worcestershire Nappy Advisory Service

Overusing proprietary chemical cleaning products in the office harms the environment – we use vinegar as an effective cleaner and disinfectant for ICT screens.

For our office planting we insist on peat-free compostfor a low carbon alternative to standard plantingmedium.

Where we can’t use digital communications, we insist onForest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper for all ourprinting and outgoing publications.

We ask our colleagues to report spillages straight away so that stains can be tackled without the need for chemical-heavy cleaners.

WWF-UK

There are some staggering statistics about the environment out there. For example, did you know that there are 10m office PCs in Britain and 1.8m are regularly left on overnight wasting 1.5 billion kWh of which equates to 7000,000 tonnes of carbon - that's 10% of the UK climate change levy target! It’s time to think about the bigger picture and how your office can play a part in this.

Take the time to really think about and assess the impact your office has on the environment – how can you improve this?

Think about the future and set some green goals and targets, you could try implementing your own CSR policy to help guide you

We brought our own HSM ProfiPack 400 Cardboard Recycling Shredder & now instead of sending cardboard to landfill, produce our own packing filling, it has paid for itself in under a year. Clean Green & Cost Effective Basically, Win-Win-Win

CSL

Ask team members to be more mindful of what they print and if appropriate display meeting papers via a projector instead of staff printing them off. It saves us several reams of paper each week.

Lynne Denison - NELFT

If you have to drive to work, try car sharing.

Anonymous

I have met some who are very sensitive to computers, etc, which has made them ill. Much of modern life, is not for the wellbeing of humans. Part of being green is also to encourage health. So ensure, plenty of green plants in the office, encourage walking as much as possible, and I also think it's good for mental health to work from home once a week. Try not to do too much travel for work, video conferencing is a great way to go. Good health promotes good work.

Jan Brad

We use all the shredded paper for animal bedding, much cheaper and eco friendly than buying proprietary bedding from the pet shop.

Jaye Dixon

Why do companies mail out multiple copies of the same item? Waste of trees, money, effort!

MRUK Research

Buy sustainably

When you are looking to upgrade office equipment or furniture, make sure you check how items have been produced. Investing in high quality furniture can be a more sustainable option than cheaper pieces as it’s long-lasting.

Accord Office

For all organisations to really capitalise on the savings that are there for the taking, businesses need to have the right skills in place right. Those skills should come not only in the form of skilled Environment and Sustainability specialists, but right across the workforce from shop-floor staff to Directors. It’s up to those at leadership level to take control and recruit and develop staff so their organisation is suitably equipped.  

Full article at https://www.i-l-m.com/Insight/Inspire/2014/December/sustainability-leadership

The Institute of Leadership & Management

Last year in July, Vital Energi held our very first ‘Green Week’, which resulted in reducing energy usage for the week by 5%. This equates to a yearly saving of almost £1,000. 75% of staff at Head Office got involved in the various initiatives and among the many achievements of the week we raised £75 for Christies through the eco bake sale, which had Fair-trade prizes up for grabs for the winning bake. Travel Thursday proved to be a big success with a whopping 20% of people choosing to car share and an additional 5% of people sharing a taxi or walking to work.

Motion sensor lighting is installed throughout our Head Office and for those lights that are turned on via a switch there are posters to remind employees to turn off the lights when not in the room. This year we want to make Green Week an even bigger success by involving those working out on site and including our London office by introducing activities such as an Organic Market, Swap Shop and ePledge cards.

Further to this Vital Energi have also:

Introduced a battery recycling bin into the office.

Implemented eLearning awareness courses including Environmental and Asbestos which reduces the carbon footprint of training.

Ensured 40% of the car fleet is comprised of Hybrid vehicles including Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) that are partially charged by our solar panels.

Began our program of Environmental Site Inspections.

Launched our SHEQ (Safety, Health, Environmental and Quality) Awards Scheme to celebrate positive employee contributions towards health, safety, quality and environment.

Expanded our Health, Safety and Environmental Committee to include a representative from each part of the business.

In keeping with our accreditation to ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems, Vital Energi is constantly reviewing our environmental credentials and looking out for ways that we can help reduce our impacts on the environment.

Vital Energi

It would be good to encourage company's to make sure the one page letters they send out WILL print out on a A4 and not to wast a page for a single line of text on the bottom of the page that invariably is printed in such and small size that no one can read it most times.

B. Naderi

You may be interested in the 5 star A4 80gsm 100 % Recycled Remarkable Loop Copier Paper said to be suitable for Laser/ Copy & Inkjet. How it works:

Waste office paper is put into a special bin provided by your Business SupplierThis bin is collected by the supplier for free when stationery is deliveredThe sorted paper is sent to the eco factory to be 100% recycled5 Star Remarkable Loop paper is purchased and the cycle is started again. I think this is an excellent idea as it is said to use:83% less water72% less energy00% less timber53% less CO2

Peter Singleton,DAVID FRENCH PARTNERSHIP LLP

We run free recycling schemes for businesses, charities, schools and individuals.  We operate UK-wide and also offer a free courier collection service for those recycling in larger quantities, which, is often the case in office environments.  It’s surprising how many people are unaware of recycling ink and toner cartridges, and that you can often recycle them for cash value or for a charity. We have a whole host of charity partners that people can choose to recycle for: http://www.therecyclingfactory.com/our-partners/  and we have now moved to downloadable labels in order to reduce the number of paper envelopes that were in circulation. The Recycling Factory

Our facility is UK based, and we test and process everything on our site in Boston, Lincolnshire.  Any items that are successfully processed are allocated as a credit or donation and an activity report can be sent (via email) if the business or individual wanted to track what had been recycled and raised.  We do not take a percentage or a commission, 100% of the value of an item is allocated. As we are a recycling company, we do have strict rules in our offices about recycling cartridges and we also have boxes for paper and card to be deposited for recycling.  There are so many small things that offices can do to help!

The Recycling Factory

Gerbils, hamsters, etc make the perfect shredders, but you might have too much for them. My answer is to shred personal documents as per usual, and then put it in the compost bin.

Once shredded it will mix well with green materials in the bin and rot away. None personal shredded paper placed inside a carrier bag and sealed makes good packing for fragile goods.

Josie Manley

Save money on notepads by reusing printed paper that would normally go straight into the recycling bin.  Cut to size either A5 or A6 and punch one corner and use a treasury tag or even a bull dog clip and use these scribble pads for notes or keep one by the phone for those important numbers and messages. Then when you are done filling up all that blank space, then they can complete the journey to the recycle bin!

Val

The Goldsmiths Hall based in EC2V approached Compactors Direct members of the Sustainable Restaurant Association with a view to becoming zero to landfill using the latest technology in the market. Compactors Direct are at the fore front of providing the latest and most cost effective solutions for companies where ensuring their waste streams are disposed of in an environmentally and ethically manner.

Compactors Direct have installed a glass crusher to reduce the volume of glass and reduce collections saving valuable CO’2 emissions. Paper, Cardboard, Plastic, Tin and Aluminium cans are separated and where applicable either taken to a MRF for recycling or RDF for energy.

For their food waste, Compactors Direct installed an LFC (Liquid Food Digester) The LFC is a fully enclosed automatic digesting machine that disposes of most food matter within 24 hours.

The LFC uses a series of processes in which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the presence of oxygen.

The environment of the LFC, with our proprietary mixture of microbes and enzymes, accelerates the digestion of most food products and bio-plastics within 24 hours. The output is grey water that is environmentally safe. The machine can digest both raw and cooked foods. The process is totally green because it uses no chemicals. The waste food is not being chopped but it is decomposed to such a degree that it becomes a liquid and can exit the machine only through a fine mesh screen.

The LFC can connect through its Ethernet port to a cloud server maintained by Compactors Direct. The LFC securely sends data about the operation of the LFC to the server and that data is retained for five years.

The data includes the amount of waste food digested hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly and the amount of CO2 diverted from the landfill during these periods into a single report. Using all of these methods The Goldsmiths Hall has been able to become fully zero to landfill and save valuable CO2 levels.

Compactors Direct

www.compactorsdirect.co.uk

On the final day of Green Office Week it’s time to take everything you’ve learnt into the future! We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this guide and now put some of these ideas into practice. Our top tip is having meetings

around a whiteboard – we take the minutes/ideas/brainstorms on the whiteboard from the whole team, and at the end of the meeting, photograph and email it to everyone. No one brings a notebook to the meeting anymore as everything is captured on the board.

Durham Clinical Trials Unit 

By The First Mile

It can often be a daunting task trying to convince your colleagues to recycle in the office, so when our customers seek guidance to become (even more) greener, we have three fundamental rules to help them achieve it:

1. Reduce number of waste bins. They're bringing you down (literally).

Fact - If you have 5 general waste bins and 5 recycling bins in your office, you're only ever going to recycle 50% of your waste. Consequently, someone may put paper or sandwich packaging into a general waste bin, which won't be recycled. This is how your recycling rate goes down. The more recycling and less general waste bins you have, the more you'll be able to recycle. Easy.

2. Pictures. They help.

We have found that most of the time, people want to do the right thing and recycle their waste. However, people are busy, and may not always stop to look at a poster which lists 73 items that may or may not be recycled. With this in mind, de-clutter your literature (as we have) and have a handful of basic images which show what can be recycled.

3. Why recycle? Know the implications.

Many know the benefits to recycling but may not know the consequences of what happens to waste that isn't (but can be) recycled. For example, if your rubbish is taken to a landfill site, the waste that isn't biodegradable will rot, decompose and produce gases like Carbon Dioxide and Methane which add to global warming. Information like this is crucial to making staff understand the important of choosing the right bin.

Details of what can be recycled from an office can be found at www.thefirstmile.co.uk

 

 Being responsible and showing your green commitment is becoming more important for businesses. As well as offering green plant and green wall installations, Enterprise Plants can also install a wormery which can reduce your carbon footprint and improve your green credentials. Wormeries can play a big part in reducing landfill and recycling waste food. Better still, someone – or rather something – else does all the hard work. In the UK we throw away about 7 million tonnes of food waste every year which does go into landfill. By recycling your food waste in a wormery, you also reduce costs and carbon footprint of transporting your food waste to landfill sites. What is a wormery?A wormery is a large compost bin where Dendrobaena worms eat the microbes and turn waste food into compost. The organic compost produced is top quality and can be recycled on your surrounding grounds and plant beds. 

Facts about worms

•Worms can eat half their body weight everyday•Worms tighten the muscles around their bodies making them thinner which squeezes the muscles running the length of the bodies to squeeze together and propel them forward – that’s just how they roll•Worms don’t have lungs; they take oxygen straight into their bloodstream•Worms ingest food that has been softened by micro-organisms; adding sand or limestone to ground up food can help worms to grind small particles in their gullet.

Wormery services from Enterprise PlantsAt Enterprise Plants we offer a completely comprehensive service supplying the unit, the worms and the collection bins. We can visit your site to process the waste and supply you with regular reports for your records for a monthly fee.  Or we offer a one-off service supplying all you need and training your staff. We can add regular wormery health check visits as well. We have just installed our latest wormery at our own premises at Hall Farm, so we are really practising what we preach for Green Office Week. If you’d like one for your business, please visit our website or give us a call on 0800 032 1820. 

 By Avery blogger, Susanne Wakefield Green Office Week is a great time to reflect on how we, as consumers, can make informed choices about the Eco-friendly products that we use within the office, either at home or work. In particular, paper products, as even in this day-in-age of virtual cloud storage and file sharing, paper is still heavily relied upon and still firmly routed within the workplace.  If you’ve ever wondered what the little tree logo symbolised on the back of stationery, cards and other paper materials, here is the low down — it’s a little stamp to show you care. When choosing your paper products for the office or home, it is an emblem to look for so that you can feel good about your purchase. It shows that the product manufacturers care too, they care about how and where they source their raw materials. The FSC ‘tree tick’ logo is a certification mark awarded by the Forest Stewardship Council. This is used to certify that the particular wood product, such as paper, labels or envelopes, has been sourced from well-managed forests. This means that the products you are buying are not adding to the destruction of the world ’s forests. 

 The FSC states: ‘FSC is the only wood certification scheme endorsed by the major environmental charities, including WWF, Greenpeace and The Woodland Trust.’ Their certified forests are being managed in a way that respects the wildlife and the indigenous population, providing jobs for local people and supporting local communities.

The work of the FSC ensures that the future of the forests are safeguarded, either by planned replanting or natural replenishment. And the wood that is harvested from these forests is then traced from source to shop, with certification following each step of the supply chain.  Avery office products are certified by the FSC, so by buying Avery you know that the paper products you are choosing are not causing any unnecessary destruction to the forests where they are sourced. Another benefit of Avery products is that they are full recyclable, so not only is their functionality faultless, they are the Eco-friendly option all the way.

Susanne Wakefield

     

 There is nothing like some plants in your workspace. They cheer you up, make you more productive and less stressed too. efig’s members are responsible for making the interiors of offices, hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, shopping centres and other workplaces green with plant installations. Over the last few years we have seen a big advance in living green walls taking over the greening process. And green walls come in all shapes and sizes with many tailor built for the area they are covering. If having one green plant on your desk helps to improve your mood and reduce stress levels, imagine what a whole green wall can do. There are a variety of green walls systems which in basic terms, include a framework on which the plants grow and an irrigation system so that the plants receive water whenever they need it. Maintenance is still necessary to keep plants in check or to remove any that aren’t faring so well. 

 All in all this method of covering one space with green plants can be a lot easier and good when space is in short supply not to mention better for Health and Safety rulings. Other types of green wallA number of smaller green wall products have also been developed from moveable screens to pictures which are less costly. Of course you can install several of these to create more coverage too. Green walls outsideWe mustn’t forget the green effect of having a green wall on the outside of your building too. It can help to clean the air and reduce pollution – itself a killer – as well as absorb other particles in the air. They also act as an area to improve biodiversity. Green walls are definitely something that the 21st century is embracing. And they are something that any business with an eye to upping their green credentials or being seen as responsibly eco-friendly should consider. Check out our website www.efig.co.uk for an efig member near you who can install a green wall. efig Ltd is the trade association for the interior landscaping industry

Every Can Counts share their top tips for office recycling success:

•Identify a recycling champion/s in the office to inform and advise colleagues about the recycling process

•Update office cleaners about your recycling processes so they know where to leave your recycling

collections

•Regularly report on how much has been recycled, to motivate staff. This could be done by using graphs

in reception/rest rooms.  The Every Can Counts Can-Culator can help demonstrate the value of every

can collected. The Can-Culator can be found here http://www.everycancounts.co.uk/canculator/

•Incentivise to encourage more recycling. Introduce ‘Recycling Employee of the month’ or make the

scheme a competition by asking people to write their name/extension number or email on a can before

they put it in the recycling box – one lucky can a week can win a prize, e.g. a shopping voucher

  

• Encourage recycling across the office, by promoting recycling schemes in rest

rooms, canteens and staff rooms

• Make recycling part of the company ‘culture’ and promote as part of the

company/ies CSR initiative. If you’re going for ISO14001 or any

environmental/sustainability accreditation Every Can Counts can form part of

your measurable commitment to recycling

• Work with suppliers to provide recycled goods or support your recycling

schemes

• Enter your company for a Green Can Award from Every Can Counts! Details

can be found at http://www.everycancounts.co.uk/businesses/green-can-

awards/

• Contact Every Can Counts to order a free starter pack and you could be

recycling within 7 days http://www.everycancounts.co.uk

  

At EMS, we have done a variety of initiatives to try and encourage a greener office.  Last year, we achieved the Investors in the Environment (iiE) Green Award.  The work done towards this project was regularly communicated to our staff.  Through better monitoring, we found that we had reduced gas by 25%, mainly due to altering the timers on the boilers to make sure they were only on when people were in the office.  All of our staff have also attended the one day NEBOSH Award in Environmental Awareness at Work.  This gives all staff from engineers to accounts a better understanding of environmental impacts and what they can do to reduce the environmental impacts of our business. We also have ISO14001 and our objectives and targets are directly linked to our business plan.  As an environmental company, we advise businesses across a variety of sectors how to improve their environmental management.  Therefore, for us, the more work we do, the bigger the benefit for the environment as businesses better manage their risks and become more efficient. Environmental Monitoring Solutions  

Which Junk Model is your favourite? The Avery UK team has been busy making junk models as part of Green Office Week. Which team do you like best?Team A: Their model is called “Last minute Fancy dress (with added Jet pack)

Team B: iRecycle

Team C: A really useful recycling box to keep on my desk so that I can put my recyclable paper and stationery into. Once its full I will donate it to the local nursery school.

The Carbon Trust http://www.carbontrust.com

The First Mile www.thefirstmile.co.uk

The Sustainable Restaurant Association http://www.thesra.org/

Rainforest Alliance http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/

Forest Stewardship Council https://us.fsc.org/

WWF UK http://www.wwf.org.uk/

Max McMurdo Reestore http://www.maxmcmurdo.co.uk/

Greenpeace UK http://www.greenpeace.org.uk

Compactors Directhttp://www.compactorsdirect.co.uk/

Fairtrade Foundation http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

Soil Association http://www.soilassociation.org/

Wrap http://www.wrap.org.uk/

Honest Coffees http://www.honestcoffees.com

Avery UK also has a range of eco-friendly products made from FSC certified paper from

responsibly managed forests. You can find out more about these

products on the Green Office Week website.

www.greenofficeweek.eu

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this guide during

Green Office Week. Please share the guide with

colleagues, suppliers and your social media communities so more people can make real

changes.

Keep the conversation going with #greenoffice15