Ecocitizen at the office
At the office, I do as I would at home
At the office, just as at home, we need to stay warm, have light, be equipped (with office material, furniture). We thus need energy and raw materials. This consumption is not without consequences for our environment.
How to reduce our consumption? In everyday life, we already have behaviours that allow us to save energy and resources, to sort our waste. At the office it is important to act in the same way as at home, as we spend a lot of time at our workplace.
How to act more responsibly at the office, to reduce the environmental impact, and how to stay motivated?
Computer, printer, copy machine… or coffee machine.
There are quite a few electrical appliances which are indispensable in our office. Always turned on, or almost, they are also often inactive, and it is during these phases of inactivity that two thirds of their consumption occurs. The way one uses the computer is important in order to limit its consumption.
- Use the sleep mode with care. A computer in sleep mode still uses 20-40 % of its normal energy consumption. Try to turn it off as often as possible!
- When you close a portable computer, it is better to unplug it if the batteries are charged.
- Diminishing the luminosity of the screen allows you to reduce its energy consumption. It is also more comfortable for the eyes.
Even if the choice of equipment is not made by the personnel, it is useful to know which equipment uses the least energy and to discuss it in the office. It is more economical to use a multifunction machine (printer / scanner / copier) and even more economical to link all computers to one common printer.
- Configure all copy machines and printers to print on both sides of the paper.
- Print documents with 2 pages per sheet.
- Print no more copies than necessary.
- Use the blank pages of already printed documents to take notes, instead of throwing them away.
- Cancel subscriptions for papers or journals if they are not being read, even if they are free.
- Be selective in the documents you print.
Lighting at the office.
Simple actions allow us to obtain good lighting and/or to save on energy.
- Carefully choose where we place our computer screens.
- Turn off any lights when we leave our office.
- Replace light bulbs that consume a lot of energy (halogens) by economical light bulbs (low consumption, high-yield fluorescent tubes). This is important, since lighting represents 15-20 % of the energy consumption in our offices.
Focus on the coffee break.
That most sociable moment, the coffee break, produces much waste; sugar packages, capsules, plastic cutlery and especially plastic or paper cups. First of all, long live the mug — washable and re-usable. And why not use coffee, sugar, biscuits etc. bought in large packages, instead of portion packs? It is less expensive and produces less waste.
Examples of such measures, general or punctual, are multiplying in the workplace. To limit the impact of waste on our environment, companies can, and must, commit themselves to global actions (diagnostic and action plans). The environment is everyone’s concern, and it is important to pay attention each and every day to the waste we produce in the office.
