How To Green Your Home Office In 12 Simple Steps

Working at home can be one of the most efficient and rewarding ways to earn a living. From a green perspective, saving on gasoline consumption and wear and tear on your vehicle by sparing yourself a daily commute can be one the most obvious ways you can reduce your carbon footprint. The time and money you save is a well deserved bonus. In many cases, choosing to lead a sustainable lifestyle makes greening your home business that much easier because you have complete control of your environment.

As an entrepreneur, you want to be efficient with your time, money and energy. This includes the energy and resources your business consumes as well. Going green also includes creating a healthy environment for both mind and body and since your home office is also your place of residence, you get the best of both worlds. Let’s take a look at some earth friendly practices you can implement both quickly and easily.

1) Energy Saving Tips

Turn off your computer and other machines when you are done work for the day. Replace old energy hogs with new energy efficient ratings such as energystar. For instance, energy vampires such as laser printers, fax machines, scanners and copy machines can be replaced by all-in-one units that do all of those jobs combined. The new ink-jet printers can even give you laser like quality. Not only are the all-in-one units more efficient, they’re great space savers as well.

Make sure you take some time to clean and maintain your equipment to extend the life of your machines and keep them running smoothly. You can also consider making simple upgrades to your computer by adding more memory or hard drive space to extend the life as well. Taking your computer in for a professional tune up can also keep it running smoothly and out of the land fill. Replace old light bulbs with energy-efficient lighting and/or ideally consider working in an area that utilizes natural light.

2) Burn Less Fuel & Decrease Harmful Emissions

Spare yourself a drive and use teleconferencing. Video cameras are cheap these days and free services such as Skype make virtual meetings a snap. Use all of the wonderful technology we have available at our disposal. Web 2.0 has provided us with so many wonderful platforms that we can use to communicate with one another that location is no longer an issue. Even doing business with your global partners does not necessarily mean booking a plane ticket. Webinars, teleconferencing, file sharing programs and more make interacting with our clients and business partners convenient right from our home office.

3) Save Trees: Cut Down On Your Paper Consumption

Send and receive virtual faxes, rather than paper ones. You can even send invoices to customers this way as well as e-mail. When you do need to use paper, consider using both sides and use paper that is either partially or 100% made from recycled materials. Same with your packaging materials. If you ship products, do it sustainably by using recycled corrugated boxes and environmentally friendly packing supplies. You can even use digital note pads to keep track of goals and to-do lists instead of paper notepads.

4) Eliminate Toxins: Use Natural Cleaning Products

Keep Toxic Chemicals out of your office. So much of the new cheap furniture made from particle board emits formaldehyde when its new. Don’t buy it. Also, switch to using eco-friendly cleaning products instead of those containing harmful chemicals. You can even make your own if you really want to save money and you are the do-it -yourself type. Plenty of resources on the web will show you how to use common household items to make inexpensive yet effective products.

5) Recycle and Reuse

Make sure you have two separate bins for waste and recyclables. Recycle ink cartridges or simply refill with ink instead of replacing. Do the same with your pens. If shopping for office furniture such as a good desk, buy used such as antique or from a business closing it’s doors. Get a good comfortable chair and you will be more productive. Reuse boxes and packaging materials as often as possible. By extending the life of what would normally be recycled, considerable energy is saved as well.
When it is finally time to send your old computer, office equipment or electronic gadgets out the door, consider the many programs out there that can help you to donate, recycle or reuse them instead. If you do a web search for “recycle electronics”, you’ll find a number of resources that can help guide your efforts to create less waste.

6) No More Plastic Bottles

Stop buying cases of water bottled in plastic. Just because you work at home doesn’t mean you cannot use filtered water or a water cooler. In fact, in my home office, I use a crock which dispenses water at room temperature which doesn’t require energy to power it. I use a home delivery service and order enough water to last for a month a time. The water is from a local source and is not being trucked in from far away and deliveries are scheduled by the company once a month when they will be in my specific area. The empty bottles are picked up when new water is delivered and taken away for reuse.

I personally use environmentally friendly water bottles to drink from made from sustainable materials such as stainless steel. You can buy some pretty stylish ones online and/or perhaps your local health food store. Some of my favorites include brands such as Klean Kanteen and Sigg. Keep in mind 2 million plastic bottles are used every 10 minutes. That is a staggering number and coupled with the short life cycle of these products, this is a recipe for ecological disaster. The fact that these bottles are made from crude oil poses a serious drain on an already diminishing (and costly) resource.

7) Eat Smart, Buy Local

Consider making your lunches from locally grow food sources that are in season when ever possible. Shop at farmers markets. Stop eating highly processed food in cans and containers and limit delivery/take out such as Pizza and other unhealthy junk food. Get your caffeine from organic and/or fair trade coffees and teas and better yet, drink fresh squeezed juices and smoothies you can make at home for maximum nutrition and energy. Highly processed foods take a tremendous amount of energy to produce not to mention that much of the nutritional value is lost in the processing itself. On top of that, many packaged products are transported across long distances creating large carbon footprints that can be avoided or reduced by purchasing food from sources closer to home.

8) Energize Your Work Space

Add an eco-friendly air filter to the room and then oxygenate your space with plants. The plants can also help clean up the air by sucking up stuff like formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide. These pollutants are then stored in their roots or broken down into less harmful gases. Consider feng shui, an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics believed to help one improve life by receiving positive energy. This system focuses on the art of placement and takes into consideration how energy flows in a given space. You may even want to add a cool fountain to create some natural animation to enliven your work area.

9) Switch To Alternative Energy

Wind and solar are becoming viable alternatives to more traditional and less environmentally friendly energy sources such as oil and natural gas. These resources are finite and supplies cannot be sustained indefinitely at current levels of consumption. With green initiates being implemented all over the globe, companies are now offering equipment leasing programs so you do not have to lay out huge sums of money up front for systems and installation and worry about maintance as well. It has to be practical to make a switch and it is indeed becoming more so as interest is on the rise from individuals and businesses to become less dependant on non-sustainable resources. Nice way decrease or even eliminate your dependence on the local electric or gas company as well.

10) Donate To Green Causes

While you may have already picked your favorite cause to donate to, if you haven’t, you may want to consider getting your company involved with www.1percentfortheplanet.com. By becoming a member, one percent of your sales will be donated to your choice of over 1800 environmental organizations. This will create a positive perception of your brand and allow you to network with over 700 like minded businesses that are willing to be the solution and not part of the problem. You can also donate directly without becoming a member but membership has its benefits.

11) Support Businesses That Share Your Values

Shop at office supply stores that support green initiates and in turn help educate consumers to make greener choices. Choose distributors or suppliers that implement green practices over the ones that clearly have no initiative. Don’t be afraid to ask to see if they have any policies in place that deal with reducing their environmental impact. Many business make their practices quite clear by proudly displaying their affiliation with green movements or charities on their websites or marketing materials. After all, showing that you care about our planet often improves a companies public image. Choose your affiliations wisely.

12) Do-It Yourself Energy Audit/Weatherize Your Home

A home audit is simply assessing your homes energy consumption and taking steps to make it more energy efficient. To begin, you make a checklist and do a thorough walk through to detect areas which may be problematic. This will help you to prioritize areas that may need energy upgrades. This may include simply practices such as caulking or sealing your windows during winter and opening them during summer. You may find areas in your home that require more insulation or even a simple filter change for your heating unit may be in order. Air leaks found at doors can easily be solved with weather striping. Storm doors and windows are also a good solution.

Now, you don’t have to implement everything at once as what I’ve found personally in my life is that going green is a process and change doesn’t always come as quickly as we would always like. It’s a state of mind that unfolds as we pay more attention to the impact of our choices. The important point to consider is to simply stay the course and remain conscious of how our actions impact our health and the environment making both minor and major adjustments as we navigate the sea of change.

We are stewards of Mother Earth which is a great responsibility that we all share without expectation. What we do to her we do to ourselves. After all, the things we strive for as eco-preneurs would not exist without her unconditional love. Does the Sun ever ask the Earth for anything in return for its life giving light? We are provided everything we need if we would only learn to care take and not just consume and appreciate the many gifts we are given freely. We ideally want to leave as little an impact on our planet as possible as if treading lightly on a sandy beach with our footprints washing away effortlessly as the waves break along the shoreline. Let’s heal our planet by taking action so we may insure that our Earth will continue to sustain us for countless generations to come.

If you have a suggestion I may have missed, please leave a comment below or let us know which tip you may personally implement from the list above. If you’ve found this content to be of value, please retweet it or share with your friends.

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