Top Ten Tips for Reducing Office CO2 Emissions

There's more pressure than ever for businesses to reduce their carbon footprint. Whether climate change is at the top of organisations' agendas or not, measures to reduce CO2 emissions can significantly cut costs and improve staff, partner and customer relations, making business as well as environmental sense.

Give your company a CO2 health check - It's important to determine approximately how much CO2 your company emits and in which areas of the business CO2 emissions are the highest. Some businesses bring in a third party to assess this, however, this isn't essential. Commonsense combined with a decent business-specific carbon calculator are usually sufficient for CO2 health checks in office-based organisations.

Appoint a green executive - If this isn't already in place, a member of staff needs to be given overall responsibility for the company's environmental policy. Smaller organisations may decide to provide an existing member of staff with this responsibility, in which case they need to have the time and the desire to take on the role.

Involve staff - The buy-in of all staff needs to be obtained from the outset if measures to reduce carbon emissions are to be successful. Advise all staff of the company's 'green' plans and request help and suggestions. Ensure staff continue to be involved with the company's environmental direction by establishing a 'green committee' and/or a 'green ideas box' which allows staff to put forward their own suggestions for reducing emissions.

Recycle and re-use - Whenever possible, ensure office waste is recycled or re-used, including paper, IT equipment, office furniture, textiles etc.

Cut-down on paper use - As well as recycling paper, you should implement measures and technologies to cut-down on paper use. Encourage staff to refrain from printing-out emails and invest in document management technology. This technology dramatically cuts-down on paper use as well as the printing and photocopying of paper. With a typical return-on-investment of just six months, document management also makes smart business sense.

Enforce good housekeeping - Ensure staff turn off all electrical equipment when they leave the office, including PCs, phone chargers, photocopiers and lights.

Reduce out-of-office meetings -Where possible,cut-down on car travel by encouraging phone, video and web conferences as opposed to out-of-office meetings.

Promote public transport and car sharing -When staff do have to travel, encourage the use of public transport. A car-sharing pool also reduces the number of car journeys to and from the office.

Look into offsetting schemes - As well as reducing CO2 emissions, look into carbon offsetting schemes, which often have a range of economic and social as well as ecological benefits. Tree planting, investing in 'green energy' projects such as wind farms and providing funds for low carbon technologies in the developing world, are some of the offsetting projects available.
Evaluate progress - After 12 months, it's important to evaluate what impact the various measures have had. Have carbon emissions been reduced? Have staff bought-into the new measures? Have the measures cut costs? Once the results have been evaluated, plan the company's environmental policy for the next 12 months, setting-out organisation-wide targets.

Within the past year, 'climate change' and 'carbon footprints' have been so widely discussed that businesses are in danger of becoming complacent to the part they should be playing in reducing carbon emissions. With organisations trying to profit from the climate change frenzy by offering CO2 consultations and all manner of CO2 reducing solutions, businesses could also be led to believe that implementing measures to reduce CO2 levels is both costly and very time-consuming.

In actual fact, all types of organisation can take steps to reduce their emissions from ensuring staff turn-off their PCs to encouraging web, video and phone conferences. 'Going green' needn't cost a fortune and in actual fact, environmentally-friendly measures can save businesses money whilst improving staff morale.

Catherine Murphy is marketing manager for Version One, a multi environmental award winning Document Management company based in the UK and the USA. They offer money saving document management systems and document imaging software to environmentally conscious business and organisations worldwide.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Catherine_Murphy

19 Hearst Magazines to Include "Please Recycle"

By Geri Weis-Corbley

Hearst Magazines will use the Table of Contents page to encourage its readers to recycle those contents instead of tossing them in the trash. Beginning with July issues, all 19 U.S. glossies will feature the "Please Recycle This Magazine" logo, and Hearst will become the first to adopt, across its entire line, the green initiative launched by the Magazine Publishers of America earlier this year...

Surprisingly, fewer than 20 percent of Americans are recycling their magazines at home, even though at least two-thirds of the population has access to magazine recycling in their communities and curbside. More magazine recycling would help grow the supply of recovered fiber and further reduce demand on the world's forests.

The Please Recycle logo will be prominently displayed in Hearst magazines either on the masthead page or in the table of contents, and Editors-in-Chief will promote the appearance of the logo in their various Editor's Letters and/or elsewhere in their magazines.

The Please Recycle campaign was launched by the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) and is an industry-wide public education campaign the MPA is undertaking with its member publications to get readers to recycle their magazines when they are done enjoying them.

This is not the first time Hearst has shown its green thumb print. It built the first green-certified building in New York City, Hearst Tower, which was given a gold LEED seal of approval and honor by Global Green USA, and has participated in tree planning through National Arbor Day Foundation (www.arborday.org) and the New York Restoration Project. Riverkeeper, vice chaired by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will honor Hearst on April 19 for its support of the organization.

Pollution Liability Insurance

By Steve Valentino

Pollution liability insurance is known as “pollution incidents"" in the insurance world. There is a thought to suggest that this insurance policy came into picture following the great amount of asbestos litigation in the 1970s. It was around that time that insurers thought it better to do away with pollution liability insurance in general policies and instead offer it independently.

Pollution liability insurance protects you in two ways: one is when the pollution takes place on your property; the other is when you suffer losses resulting from pollution on somebody else’s property. In such cases, it is the insurer’s responsibility to recover costs from the party that caused the incident. Conversely, your policy pays for damages you may cause to other properties.

The most general use of pollution insurance is to protect lenders, buyers and sellers in property transactions. Conventionally, buyers do hire environmental consultants to assess sites. That may take a little over twenty days and cost up to $5,000. Concomitant to the delay, there is another major danger in this. Consultants opine on the current condition of the site and not what may happen in the future.

Pollution liability insurance, on the other hand, guards the insured for the entire term of the policy, including for any later discovery of damage. The policies are largely renewable and can be in place for up to ten years. Also, these policies are a lot more cost effective than a site assessment.

Pollution liability insurance is doubtless a useful and an economically viable way of managing environmental risks. It can be particularly beneficial to those companies that deal with materials that may be considered as pollutants once released into the environment.

Why Rubber Should Be Recycled?

The tyres are recycled in many ways. They can be reused if they are in good shape. You can use them after recycling them. They can be crumbled into rubber pieces and then used later. Recycled rubber can be used to make surface for the playgrounds. It can also be used as fuel. Its uses are many but only after it have been recycled. As such this whole process of recycling is really important one.

Therefore it is not a wise idea to use the waste rubber tyres for landfills either it can be used to benefit a lot of people. People sometimes burn these old tyres in order to get rid off them. The recycling process prevents environmental pollution. The recycling process prevents the manufactures from making new materials and hence it saves a lot of time, money and power or energy. One can create wonderful items from the preexisting old useless rubber tyres just by recycling them. There are many centers or shops that collect old tyres to be recycled later. You can give your old tyres to these centers or throw it away and your old waste materials will indirectly go for recycling.

Let me remind you that burning of tyres causes pollution of air by harmful substances like lead and arsenic. Therefore this practice should be avoided. The recycled rubber should be used in materials like the rubber mulch. This is used for playgrounds, landscapes, arena footing, etc. All these provide a better and convenient life to its buyers.

If you want to know more about Rubber Mulch then it is a good idea to visit Landscaper Rubber Mulch.

Stop Environmental Pollution

Jared Lee

There are a lot of things that you can do to stop environmental pollution. If you don’t know how to get involved, you can start by following these tips.

Make An Online Donation: There are a lot of organizations that can use your financial support. If you do not have a lot time, you can help out by making online donation.

Donate A Used Automobile: If you have an old car, you can also make donation to a program like Car Program LLC. They will use your car to save the earth.

Recycle: Believe it or not, there are tons of things that you can recycle. For instance, you probably know that you can recycle aluminum, metal, paper, and plastic. Do you know that you can recycle mobile phones and car batteries? If you have old clothes, you can donate them to charity. That is one type of recycling. Recycling is not only limited to aluminum, metal, paper, and plastic. Be creative. You will realize that your potentials for recycling are limitless.

Save Energy: Save energy can be simple thing like turning off the light. If your home use incandescent light bulb, you should change it to fluorescent light bulb. Although fluorescent light bulb is a little more expensive, it usually lasts longer. Saving energy can also save your money. Saving environment and saving your money are like killing two birds with one stone.

Encourage Your Friends And Neighbors To Help: Stop environmental pollution is everybody’s duty. It is important to encourage your friends and neighbors to help.