Greening The Office | Atlas Roofing Corporation

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Greening the Office

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Greening The Office

We tend to treat our work place like a rental car. Pay the extra $29.99 for insurance and do what ever you want to it. Most companies are lucky if they get the car back filled up. It's great that you have all Energy Star appliances in your home kitchen. You turn your lights off when you leave the house, you even installed Atlas's Energy Shield® Polyiso Insulating Sheathing in your home. But what happens when you go to work? We print everything without trying to minimize pages, or switching the ink to "fast draft" to save a few seconds. Reams upon reams of paper are used. Excess energy consumption used without thought. The office has turned into an energy toilet bowl.

Part of leading a “greener” life and contributing to a sustainable future is remembering to reduce, reuse and recycle in the office. Stop and think about the number of emails you have printed in a given week, the beverage bottles/cans you might have pitched in the trash or the empty ink cartridge you did not send back to the manufacturer. There are many ways of contributing to an environmentally friendly workplace.

Here are some easy things you can do to get the ball rolling in your office:

	Set up separate recycling bins for cans, bottles, paper and any other materials that your community or property management supports. If your community or property management does not offer recycling, consider suggesting they do so in the future.
	Think before printing or re-printing documents, especially from email. Email is a great way to store and archive documents without printing.
	Consider scanning and emailing over faxing documents to save paper. There are also several ways to E-fax documents.
	Send printer cartridges back to the manufacturer after use. Most manufacturers provide pre-paid envelopes with new cartridges, making it easy to recycle these everyday items.
	Organize carpool rides with co-workers that live in similar areas.
	Seek out public transportation routes that lead to your office and make this information available to everyone in your building.
	Turn the lights off when you go to lunch, leave a shared room or go home for the day.
	Talk to the office supplies purchaser and request recycled or environmentally friendly products when possible.
	Keep the thermostat set at a fixed temperature to maintain energy use. Contact your local energy provider for recommendations.
	Use hand dryers instead of paper towels in the restroom.
	Talk to your employer about working from home on occasion to cut down on fossil fuel emissions from your daily commute.
	When designing or re-designing office spaces, consider purchasing furniture with recycled content, setting up offices with plenty of natural light and creating good ventilation for improved workspace air quality.

These are just a few things you can do to create a greener work environment. Click on the links to the left to find links to other great resources for creating a sustainable, green work environment.

Thermal Minimums Raised

For the first time in over 19 years, ASHRAE has increased the minimum required prescriptive R-value (resistance to heat flow) for roof and wall insulation levels in Standard 90.1 – the national model energy code for commercial buildings.

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Is Global Warming Real?

The warming of Earth's surface and oceans over the past century is very well documented, and climate research shows that most of the warming in the past half century results from manmade greenhouse gases.

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One Degree of Warming Having Major Impact, Study Finds.

Human-induced climate warming is already having a dramatic effect on Earth's plumbing, plants, and animals, according to an exhaustive analysis of data from around the world.

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