A couple of weeks ago there was a mini-printer showdown involving two members of the Guardian's Consumer team. It turned out one of them had sent an entire report to be printed instead of just the relevant required pages – they were vociferously berated (OK, mildly scolded) for letting our green credentials down.
But let's face it, offices are not always conducive to green habits – recycling bins are small and scarce, the double-print function manages to gnarl your paper so is rarely used, lazy co-workers chuck water bottles into the food waste bins, and no one is really sure what the colour-coded waste symbols on the bins mean anyway. Who even knows if or when the lights even get turned off at night.
It's easier to make green changes at home – I've hooked up all my electrical appliances to Bye Bye Standby to make sure everything gets turned off at the mains – but at work there are some systems we can't get around. For instance, our computers don't even let us switch off at the end of the day (a quick trip to our IT team confirmed we can only log out, not shut down, so our machines stay on all night).
We're now into the second week of Fairtrade Fortnight, during which employers are being encouraged to swap to ethical suppliers. But how about adopting more green measures in the workplace? One office equipment company has decided that this week is Green Office Week and is suggesting we turn down the heating and think before we print – nothing we don't already know, but how many offices practice these things?
Do you consciously make an effort to be green at work? Do you think your employer could do more to encourage green changes, or do you think as an employee you need to do more to spread the message?
