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Feedback from 2010
You can see the big environmental effort that companies made during Green Office Week by reading the stories below. Please let us know what you did during the week and the activities you are still doing to make your office greener. It's important everyone shares their success stories and ideas so we can all do that little bit more to help the environment.
Stories
Sustainable Procurement – the only way to be sure of your environmental impact Everything you buy for your office will have an impact on your office – make sure it’s a good one. Whether it’s a pen or a flood of marketing materials, if it’s sourced incorrectly, for example rich in virgin materials, imported across the world or child labour, it will have a negative effect on your business. That means when buying anything it’s important to know where it’s from, what it’s made of and how. Of course, you don’t have time to do this. You’ve got a business to run and other work to do. I set up The Green Desk to do exactly that. We’re a sustainable procurement company. We’ve done the research with partners and colleagues in Canada, at Oxford and in Edinburgh. We have found the most environmentally positive products (and the most damaging) on the market and asked the questions that need to be asked. So when you buy your office’s stationery, marketing, cleaning, toners and cartridges, furniture, health and safety, business cards, janitorial and catering needs, bespoke gifts, print and letterheads, workwear, recycling and, well, anything an office could need come and ask us about whats really green and whats not. The answers are never black and white but they are often surprising... It’s what makes us different from all other suppliers. And we take nothing for granted. Even if it’s recycled, we go the extra mile to make sure it was made as locally as possible – not shipped in across the world bringing with it unnecessary carbon footprints.
Other Bruce Halai-Carter
The Green DeskThe next few days are going to be busy! Today the Recycling Team are coming to give information and advice on all aspects of recyclng and composting, tomorrow there is a a Plant Swap event and Friday see a day of demonstrations of video-conferencing over a number of sites!
Ms Sally Childs
NHS DorsetThis is our first Green Office Week and we are running a running a staff competition to encourage people to share their top tips on how we can become more environmentally friendly as a company. The best idea at the end of the week wins a Love to Shop voucher. To get the creative juices flowing we are running a daily campaign via email and the intranet to share all the Green Office Week top tips.
Miss Kate Booth
Echo Managed ServicesTo celebrate Green Office Week we will be helping one lucky business to green-up by giving away a special prize. The prize is one year of free website hosting powered by the wind! More details will be published on our website during Green Office Week.
Ms Victoria Stevens
Make Hay Ethical Web Design & Green HostingWe are promoting the key themes of Green Office Week to staff via the Councils Intranet, and Energy & Environment Champions Network. Staff are also being encouraged to complete a survey to help identify new ideas to improve energy efficiency across the Council, as part of a Scrutiny Review of the issue by Council Members.
Mr Iain Smith
St.Helens CouncilThis is the first time we have teken part in GOW. We are encouraging businesses throughout Langstone Technology Park to think of measures, however small, that could make a positive difference to the environment, anything from switching off equipment at night, to using recycled (or sustainable) office supplies. The Starbucks concession onsite is offering DOUBLE LOYALTY POINTS for anyone recycling their cup sleeve or using their own lidded-cup. The park restaurant will use more locally sourced produce, reducing food-miles and has already introduced bio-degradable food packaging (where possible). There will be double the amount of recycle bins and signage to make it as easy as possible to recycle and we are also reminding businesses about the car sharing initiatives and secure bike sheds if they cycle in.
Miss Emma-Jane Bray
FassetThis years Green Office Week is going to include a day of demonstrations of videoconferencing that will be taking place in a number of locations in order to show staff that they can reduce their emissions and fuel consumption travelling as well as save time by using videocoferencing for their meetings. There will also be a recycling stand from the local council coming into the headquarters to demonstrate to staff how and where to recycle items with a competion and a water challenge for staff to take part in.
Ms Sally Childs
NHS DorsetFor Green Office Week we will be running a promotion where on Thursday 12th May 2011, we will swap any normal printer stamps purchased from us for our Green Line Stamps. The Green Line products are made predominantly from recycled materials. COLOP buys in these plastic granules, which are recovered from collected and sorted waste. By doing this, waste will be utilized for repeated and long lasting use. Because of this, the CO2 emissions are already significantly reduced. The packaging materials used for the Green Line are made from unbleached recycled cardboard. So this is a more eco-friendly alternative. We will be sending flyers out to all our customers to advertise this promotion.
Miss Jane Scott
Mark C Brown LtdRecycling special day, door to door visits that week with all our 126 customers with recycling packs, Web campaign, Feature week as event on our website www.biscuitfactoryse16.co.uk and tweet to all our followers and businesses
Other Hilary Best
Workspace Management LtdThis will be our second year of holding a Green office week. During this week we hold a Stationery Amnesty day which is aimed at the members of staff who are hoarders. They can return anything to the stationery cupboard without any questions!
Ms Pauline Fear
Sovereign TwynhamA step in a greener direction
Offices of all shapes and sizes across the country will be taking steps towards a greener working environment this April.
As part of Green Office Week 2010, offices in your local area will be looking at ways in which they can empower themselves to make a practical difference every day.
Between Monday 26th April and Friday 30th April, local businesses will attempt to find achievable ways to reduce the footprint of their enterprise.
Eco-conscious individuals have been appointed across the UK as Green Office Week Ambassadors, and we will be posting all the activities on this page.
Keep checking back here regularly to find out the latest news from your area.
