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News & Views From the Front Line
Friday, 12 February 2010
The Office of the Future
It was a good session on Sustainability in the Service Network yesterday (apart from the techies losing my slide template between our run through and the real thing 10 minutes later...). It's always a little difficult to say exciting things about office based businesses and sustainability - most of them don't have control over their building and duplex printing is hardly earth shattering. So I tease them by trailing the picture above as "the office of the future".I then have to caveat that I don't mean working outside per se (although it is lovely when I can do it), but working from home. I operate out of a well appointed home office. By doing this, I cut an hour's commute each way to work - less carbon, less stress, more time with the family. Also there isn't a heated/air-conditioned office building waiting for me somewhere (and the last building I worked in, the air con and the heat were often blazing away simultaneously but that's a long story). If I do put the heating on, that heat is used in the evening by the whole family rather than dissipating out of an empty office.
Wider than that are a whole range of other environmental and social benefits - contracted action space ie I use local amenities, those amenities are strengthened to encourage others to use them, I'm more likely to walk or cycle when I do travel, and I speak to my neighbours more leading to a closer community and reduced crime rates. A big shift to flexible working will kill the nightmare of the dormitory town.
Trust me, it's the future!
Labels: offices, working from home
# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:40
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Friday, 18 April 2008
Green office pet peeves
Every week I get a couple of PR pieces sent to me. I normally ignore them, but I quite liked this 'survey' from Xerox about what people get peeved about in the office:The Full List
The top ten environmental pet peeves among U.S. office workers:
1) Mindless printing resulting in increased waste (40%)
2) Leaving lights on (37%)
3) Lack of recycling bins (33%)
4) Excessive air conditioning in summer and heat in winter (29%)
5) Excessive use of paper products, like cups, plates, etc. (27%)
6) Coworkers not recycling (27%)
7) Coworkers not printing double-sided when they can (24%)
8) Too many cover sheets when faxing or printing (24%)
9) Having to store paper copies of existing, electronic files (24%)
10) Leaving computer on and not powering down when going home (23%)
Interestingly number 10 would be no 1 on my list. What do you think?
# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:15
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Thursday, 21 June 2007
The Carbon Footprint of Offices
While there has been exhaustive analysis of the energy use of the manufacturing and transportation industry, there has been relatively little light shone on the service sector, despite the fact that it appears to contribute about a sixth of UK carbon emissions. Now Chris Goodall, author of 'How To Live a Low Carbon Life' (see my review here), has published a review of the carbon footprint of the service sector.Goodall found that the average office based worker is responsible for about 2.26 t CO2 pa while at work. This is slightly more than the average British person emits lighting and heating their own home (2.21 t CO2 pa), despite the fact they only spend a quarter of their time at work. The main culprit is air conditioning - offices with aircon have twice the carbon footprint of offices without. The popularity of aircon is growing despite the fact that passive ventilation is cheaper both in terms of capital cost and (obviously) running costs.
This week I was contacted by the owner of a small business (SME) who wanted to make their offices 'green'. His frustration was that, like many small operations, they had little or no control over the services management in their workspace. This ruled out about half my standard 'quick wins', despite the fact none of them involved anything more substantial than changing a lightbulb. As the vast majority of companies are SMEs and few own their offices, this problem is widespread.
So while it is relatively easy to specify a low energy office new build (you just have to ask for "BREEAM Very Good" or "BREEAM Excellent"), the difficultly lies in all the existing blocks, and, importantly, influencing the person who has their hand on the temperature control.
Labels: BREEAM, carbon footprint, offices, service sector
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:02
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A highly accessible, practical guide to those who want to introduce sustainability into their business or organization quickly and effectively.
