Administration and Operations

How do we reduce waste in the office? If your workplace is anything like mine, they can stand to cut back in a lot of places. Paper management is probably the single greatest change that could be implemented in my office, and probably in most offices. We print a LOT of THICK reports, and we use a LOT of paper to do so. We only print on one side of the page. Often, one job will require that a 100+ page report be printed 3 or more times just for internal reviews before final copies are ever printed for delivery to a client. After each review, the entire report is tossed into the recycle bin and hauled away. That happens several times a week and there are a lot of us in the office. Imagine if we printed on both sides of the page or if we reused the blank sides to print the next copy. What if we reviewed documents electronically? That would take a major change of position by the reviewing appraisers, as most of them prefer a hard copy to staring at a 100 page report on their computer screens, but think about how much money we would save on paper! Not to mention the trees we'd save. Our regulating bodies require that we keep a paper file as well as an electronic file for several years. Imagine how much paper we could save if we could eliminate the need for paper storage.

We do some good. One thing we do is recycle as much kitchen/breakroom waste as we can. I've actually had to embarrass a few coworkers who placed an empty soda can in the wrong receptacle. Several of our individual offices have motion sensors on the lights so that if someone is away for more than 30 minutes, the lights turn off (though I think that's more coincidental than anything. I don't think we requested those from the property owner).

A few policies I would like to see implemented include turning monitors OFF when we leave for the day. Our computers stay on so that our IT guys can monitor them and do remote maintenance around the clock, but the monitors don't need to keep drawing power. I might even suggest that we cut those monitoring times to only a few days a week rather than every day and night. Obviously, I would like to see a reduction in paper waste, but I don't think we buy recycled paper, and I think we ought to consider it. I would also love to restrict printing times to only certain times during the day. That one might be a little tricky, since we print so much and don't always know when a client might ask for an extra copy of a report to be couriered to his office, but we could conserve a little more power by not having the printers (they're large) turned on all day. Baby steps. I'm not really sure why I am telling you all this instead of the decision makers in my office. I guess I'd better get to work on my proposal.

If you're interested in what you can do at your own office, CalRecycle has a pretty thorough waste reduction and recycle plan on their website.