APRIL 2008 NEWSLETTER ARTICLE

Making Your Office Green
...and Helping Your Customers do the Same

Industry experts are predicting that the number of government and private-sector offices that will be adopting some degree of “green” or environmentally friendly business practices this year will increase by more than 800% over the past year.

But it’s also important for you to “be a part of the solution” by implementing some green concepts in your own business. You don’t need to adopt the new LEED-EB: Operations & Maintenance program or invest in a new HVAC system, just review the following list of suggestions and adopt the ones you feel are practical to your specific situation. It’s important to understand that you don’t have to do everything, but you should do something to help improve our environment. And don’t hesitate to share these ideas with your own clients and prospects.

Recommended for Immediate Implementation:

• No smoking in the office policy
• Recycle all plastic water bottles and aluminum soda cans

Recommended for Implementation where Possible:

• Switch all incandescent light bulbs to LED or Compact Fluorescent bulbs.
• Install a clock thermostat and REALLY program it.
• Contact your utility company to arrange for a free energy audit. You’ll get a written report containing more energy saving ideas.
• Install faucet aerators and low-flow toilets
• Buy products like paper and toner that are made from recycled materials.
• Use only low-VOC or VOC-free cleaning chemicals.
• Reward car poolers with a front row parking spot.
• Consider work schedules with 4 10-hour days instead of 5 8-hour days.
• Use e-mail and fax to send invoices, proposals and other correspondence instead of mailing.
• Re-use unprinted copy paper for internal documents.
• Conduct as much business as possible on-line and on the phone. Avoid unnecessary trips.
• Adopt on-line banking.
• Don’t be afraid to open windows and turn of air conditioning.
• When replacing fleet vehicles, look into biodiesel and hybrids.
• Create a “Green Team” to come up with more ideas.

20 Great Green Ideas that Other Companies have Implemented:

Here’s a list of some really great ideas that other companies have implemented as part of their green strategy. Hopefully these will generate some new ideas for you and your customers.

1. At $100 a ton, feeding a landfill is pricey. But in the past two years, General Mills has turned its solid waste into profits. The company used to pay to have oat hulls, a Cheerios by-product trucked to the landfill. In their quest for green, the company discovered that the waste could be burned as fuel. Now customers compete to buy the stuff.
2. Wal-Mart is providing funding to the biggest truck manufacturers--ArvinMeritor, Eaton, International, and Peterbilt--to develop the first heavy-duty diesel-hybrid 18-wheeler. Wal-Mart, which operates the second-largest truck fleet in the country, will test the prototypes next year.
3. The Philadelphia Eagles claim to be the greenest team in the NFL--and not just because of the color of its jerseys. Starting this season, the team's "Go Green" environmental campaign has its stadium cleaning crew making two full sweeps after each game--one to pick up recyclables and another for trash.
4. This year, General Mills redesigned the packaging of Mom's old standby, Hamburger Helper, shaving off 20% of the paperboard box without shrinking its tasty contents. The astounding result: 500 fewer distribution trucks on the road each year.
5. The liquid-laundry-detergent industry has cut the size of its bottles by 50% or more by concentrating the liquid to two and sometimes three degrees of magnitude. Unilever's triple-concentrated All Small & Mighty detergent has saved 1.3 million gallons of diesel fuel, 10 million pounds of plastic resin, and 80 million square feet of cardboard since 2005. This fall, Procter & Gamble is converting its entire collection of liquids to double concentration.
6. Ford has sped up its painting process with technology that applies all three coats in one pass, eliminating the need for the costly and energy-sucking drying equipment used between coats. In the process, Ford will reduce CO2 emissions from production by 15% and volatile organic compound emissions by 10%. More important (for the bottom line), the process will save $7 per car by reducing painting time by 20%.
7. Coors produces 3 million gallons of ethanol a year by distilling waste beer. The brewery sells 200-proof ethanol to Valero Energy to be distributed at gas stations in Colorado. The program has been so successful that Coors doubled its capacity by building a $2.3 million facility in 2005.
8. JPMorgan Chase is starting renovations at the top--on the roof, 53 stories up in its Manhattan headquarters building, where the bank is building what is essentially a giant pan to collect rainwater. The water will be funneled into a 55,000-gallon tank in the basement, filtered, and then piped up for toilet flushing. Coupled with new low-flush urinals and toilets, this system will cut the building's water use--and cost--by 30%.
9. The hot zone in any office is the server room, where the ceiling-high racks of computers generate constant heat. Water is typically used chill the rooms by absorbing heat. At Intel 's newest data center, in Haifa, Israel, that hot water is being recycled to warm the building in winter and to heat the showers in the basement gym.
10. Staples has eco-modified a whopping 3,000 of its mainstream private-label products to include at least 30% post-consumer waste. From sticky notes to shipping boxes, nearly all of the new offerings do not have a non-recycled alternative in the product line.
11. Timberland awards its employees who buy hybrids not only with a primo parking spot but also with $3,000 toward the car's purchase. Bank of America has a similar program. Google is one-upping both with a $5,000 incentive.
12. Ten years ago, the job essentially didn't exist. But in the last two years, it has become common across a startling variety of industries. Starbucks has one. Ford too. Also Airbus, Albertson's, Alcoa, Alaska Airlines, and Anheuser-Busch, Dow Chemical and DuPont all have --a chief sustainability officer.
13. Before Rick Rubin agreed to run Columbia Records, he made some unorthodox demands: He wouldn't wear a suit, travel, or have a corporate office. He also got Columbia to agree to eliminate plastic jewel cases from CD packaging. Pushing a green agenda during contract negotiations is rare--but maybe not for long.
14. Looking to create a computer-industry equivalent of LEED certification, the EPA in 2006 created EPEAT, the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, which rates the "greenness" of computers for large-scale buyers based on 51 criteria such as energy use and amount and types of plastics. Since it began, the program has rated more than 600 computers from 23 companies, which voluntarily submit their products for review
15. This year, Gap Inc. debuts gift cards made from recycled plastic. And next spring, its Gap and Banana Republic brands will convert their price tags to 100% post-consumer recycled material. It's not exactly retooling an entire soccer-mom wardrobe into sustainable organic cotton, but it does add up: Gap price tags alone account for 10 tons of paper.
16. Target has slashed its waste by 70%. The company has applied its signature craftiness to taking advantage of every opportunity to recycle. Last year, it recycled or refurbished 47,600 broken shopping carts, 2.1 million pounds of broken plastic hangers, 4.3 million pounds of shrink-wrap from distribution centers, and more than 10,000 pounds of rechargeable batteries.
17. Delta has become the first U.S. airline to offer its passengers carbon offsets for their trips at the same time that they buy their tickets. The offsets--available only at Delta.com--cost $5.50 per roundtrip domestic ticket, and the money goes to the Conservation Fund's Go Zero program.
18. At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, about half the fleet--more than 334,000 vehicles--gets more than 28 mpg (nearly 10 times the number of fuel-efficient vehicles offered by its closest competitor, Enterprise boasts). The company is adding thousands of hybrids and FlexFuel cars.
19. The University of New Hampshire signed a deal this year with Waste Management Inc. to get 80% to 85% of the power and heat for its 14,000-student campus, using methane piped in from a nearby landfill. UNH must build a 12.7-mile pipeline to carry the gas, but the $45 million project is expected to save enough to pay for itself in 10 years.
20. Paper or plastic? The unsatisfying answer is neither. Retailers including Ikea and Trader Joe's sell heavy-duty polypropylene sacks designed to be reused. But how do you get convenience-obsessed American shoppers actually to use them again? Timberland's "Trash Is My Bag" totes double as a 10%-off coupon through the end of 2008.

Green Tree Partners · info@greentreeguys.com
10628 Summit Square Dr. · Leesburg, Florida 34788 · (352) 551-6913 T · (352) 343-8379 F
Home · About · Services · Samples · Contact

© Copyright 2009-2010 Green Tree Partners. All Rights Reserved.