> Management Commitment
> Coordinating Responsibilities
> The Action Plan
> The Environmental Audit
> Monitoring and Communication

Management Commitment

The first step for any office wanting to improve their green credentials is to establish an environmental policy. This should explain to staff, suppliers and customers where you stand on green or environmental issues.

It’s imperative that this policy is adopted, authorised and committed to by the organisation’s Chief Executive, senior management or equivalent. It will be harder to maintain enthusiasm for greening the office without this real support and application of staff resources.

The organisation should establish an Environmental Policy to state the following:

• Minimise the use of natural resources and lessen the impact on the environment.

• Meet or exceed all applicable regulations on the environment at all locations.

• Purchase non-polluting and energy efficient technologies wherever possible.

• Set its own standards and targets where no relevant Government regulation exists.

• Establish an action plan with a regular review of progress.

• Measure progress against set targets for resource efficiency and pollution reduction.

• Assist suppliers and customers to promote greener products and services.

• Report fully the environmental performance of the organisation to stakeholders and communities in a clear and concise annual report.

Once drafted the policy should be accepted by the Executive, Trustees, Board members or equivalent. This will then be your public policy on the environment. To implement your policy staff time and resources will be required to make the next step in drafting an action plan, defining responsibilities and reviewing the progress of any actions taken.

Coordinating Responsibilities

The next step is to appoint a coordinator (for a small organisation) or committee (for the larger organisation) to take special responsibility for implementing the initiative. Your committee should contain staff representatives, the building manager, purchasing officer and senior managers. It’s important that this team has adequate time and resources to sustain the programme. For some offices this may be one person. The coordinator should have access to all heads of departments.

Staff involvement in this work is crucial. People who are involved in thinking about why and how you are going green are more likely to support any actions your organisation decides to take on. Going green can be a positive, team-building experience for your office.

The Action Plan

After the environmental audit and discussions with staff, your committee or coordinator should draft an action plan. This will spell out the actions you will take in areas such as paper buying, recycling, energy, finance, general office supplies and transport.

Make sure your action plan is specific and realistic. Starting small is always best – you can always revise and update your plan when you have achieved some of your early objectives. Your plan should say how you are going to achieve each action, who will be responsible for carrying it out, and how the results will be measured.

One action could be to use chlorine-free and recycled paper for your organisation’s stationery and corporate printing. The administrator could then be responsible for estimating how many reams of paper you buy per year, what’s the total cost and what are current prices for environmentally preferable paper. Remember, if you reduce paper use this can lead to financial savings, so any marginal price increase per ream of recycled paper can be met by buying less paper overall.

An example appears below:

The action plan can then be presented to the chief executive and senior management for approval and adoption. It is also important to let staff know that the action plan is a key part of workplace policy and that everyone is expected to play their part.

The next step is to look closer at each area of office environmental impact.

The Environmental Audit

An “audit” can be as basic as members of the committee walking through the office, observing what is happening now and talking to other staff.

• Check to see if equipment is left switched on when it is not being used for long periods of time or after staff have gone home.

• Check what types of waste is being put into rubbish bins, and how often paper is used on only one side.

• Find out what fuel is used in company cars and how may business miles are made by what form of transport.

• Survey how many people walk to work, travel by bus or would consider cycling to work.

• Find out about current purchasing policies.

• Talk to other staff about their ideas to greening the office, such as saving energy or reducing waste.

Use the audit to look at each aspect of your office. Determine how your activities affect the environment, asses the significance of the impacts and look at options to make low cost and no cost improvements.

Your committee may decide to use outside consultants for a more formal audit. There are a number of companies that conduct environmental audits. They will also look at aspects such as raw materials used, products, energy, waste, transport, and the general work environment.

Monitoring and Communication

Adopting an action plan is not the end of the process. The coordinator or committee should talk to staff and be prepared to listen to their comments. You need to know how these new policies are affecting their work habits. They may have come up with more ideas now they are starting to think “green”.

This is an ideal opportunity to communicate the progress of Greening the office.
Let staff know what results have been achieved. Produce charts and notices to display on staff comment boards or at the reception so customers can see your efforts in protecting the environment.

Notice boards and internal emails can then be used to tell staff for example; How much has the demand for electricity dropped, resulting in what financial savings over the year and how much less CO2 has been produced? How much aluminium has been recycled or water saved?
The staff have produced those results and deserve praise.

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