Sustainability in economic difficulty

Climate change, carbon neutral and sustainability are all terms we hear a lot nowadays and the move to live and buy “green” has gained more awareness and interest from individuals and businesses over the last few years.

Most recently however the main topic on everyone’s mind seems to be the economy and an impending recession. This raises the question, “have these latest economic issues now caused climate change and sustainability to have a lower priority on our agenda?”

I really hope not, because by spending an initial investment on sustainability, operating costs will generally be less in the future.

Here are some tips on office sustainability:

- Dispense with disposable coffee cups. Over its life, a mug will be used about 3,000 times, resulting in 30 times less solid waste and 60 times less air pollution than using the equivalent number of cardboard cups.

- Cut down on paper use. The paperless office remains a futuristic fantasy, with about 10,000 sheets of A4 paper being used by every single Australian worker every year. Most of this paper comes from native eucalypt forests and is cholorine-bleached, a process that produces toxic dioxins. Minimise your paper wastage by setting your printer and photocopier to default to use both sides of the paper. Recycle your waste paper, and print only what’s necessary.

- Use recycled paper – a business is not truly recycling unless it buys recycled products. Recycled paper uses 90% less water and half the energy required to make new paper.

- Turn off lights; log off and shut down computers; and don’t leave chargers plugged in – they continue to draw energy even when the device isn’t plugged in.