Green Tips

Here are some simple ways we can all work to make our workplaces greener:

• Cut down on the Styrofoam. Instead of filling the trash bins with Styrofoam cups, bring a coffee mug or water bottle to work. At the Metairie office, we’re now using cups made of 100% U.S. Corn Plastic.
• Don't use a screen saver. They are not necessary on modern monitors and studies show they actually consume more energy than allowing the monitor to dim when it's not in use.
• Use less paper. The beauty of PowerPoint, email, and other great computer applications is that they allow us to put more on our computers, and less on paper.
• Turn down the brightness setting on your monitor. The brightest setting on a monitor consumes twice the power used by the dimmest setting.
• Turn off peripherals such as printers, scanners, and speakers when not in use.
• Carpool. Do you know a fellow team member who lives near you? Share a ride – in addition to helping the environment, it will save you money on gas costs.
• Close unused applications and turn off your monitor when you’re not using it.
• Fight phantom power: Plug all your electronics into one power strip and turn the strip off when you are finished using your computer.
• No more plastic bags. In addition to filling our landfills, the main ingredient in plastic bags is oil – a non-renewable resource. Try using paper bags to be more environmentally-friendly. Or better yet, use a reusable bag.
• Use the water cooler. Use the water cooler in your offices instead of buying water in plastic bottles. It costs less and doesn’t create the trash. If you don’t have a water cooler, try bringing an easy-to-use, inexpensive water filter pitcher to work
• Put this simple graphic at the bottom of your emails:

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Credit goes to www.ClimateSaversComputing.org for providing many of the green tips listed above.