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Baking for the cause!

May 20, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Today the members of the Toronto Green Team held a big bake sale to raise money for the oil spill clean up.  Cookies, squares, cupcakes, muffins and even a cake decorated as an orange Softchoice Racecar helped to raise $560!! All money raised will be donated to a World Wildlife Fund recommended charity.

As this oil spill could possibly be the worst environmental catastrophe of our time, and our money is going to go to the critical clean up and rescuing of animals effected by the spill.

It also made for a great excuse to indulge in some great baked goods!

Filed Under: Fundraising Activities, Reducing Carbon Tagged With: , ,

4 quick tips for paper-reducing initiatives

May 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

A paperless office doesn’t happen overnight. Identify the areas where you can have the biggest impact and have the ability to control the change and start there. Here are 4 quick tips to get you going:

1. Everyone has to buy in. Like any office greening project, a new policy is only as strong as those who follow it. Communication is key.

2. “Paperless” often really means “less paper.” Not all your stakeholders may want to adopt your strategy, and some paper may still be needed for regulatory reasons.

3. Without paper, make sure you’re backing up files. In the traditional backup system, you would make a photocopy of a document.

4. Less paper is just the beginning of the payoff. Over time you’ll see other benefits such as less time spent looking for paper copies, easier accessibility of data, more office space and more efficient collaboration.

Filed Under: Green IT, Reducing Waste Tagged With: , , ,

10 quick ways to reduce paper use

May 19, 2010 by 1 Comment

In order to minimize your paper use, consider these activities:

  1. Implement a print management technology and assessment
  2. Measure and then set print quotas for departments or individuals
  3. Send electronic faxes instead of paper faxes
  4. Use scanners to create electronic documents instead of copying machines
  5. Store information electronically instead of in filing cabinets
  6. Collaborate and edit using electronic documents
  7. Give customers an electronic invoicing option
  8. Distribute marketing collateral in PDFs
  9. Set all printers to duplex (double-sided)
  10. Set narrow margins in all standard documents to be printed
Filed Under: Reducing Waste Tagged With: , , , ,

4 steps to starting a green strategy

May 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Many organizations don’t get going on a green strategy since it can be quite overwhelming. What does it mean to go green? Do I need to measure carbon emissions? How do I do that? Do I need a big budget to go green? Are we too small to go green? Getting caught up in trying to answer all the questions can be quite the big roadblock and discourage even the most passionate of us.

Don’t get caught up in the details. Just get going! Our planet needs our help right now, and even the smallest of steps are going to add up and make a difference. Once you have a few small wins, people will get inspired and it will snowball from there. You will soon realize that going green, means you are saving your company valuable resources. Then watch as your grass roots efforts gain the attention of the higher-ups looking for ways to cut costs and be more efficient. Green is not only great for the planet, but for business too.

Some easy first things to implement are: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Green IT Tagged With: , , ,

What is EPEAT and why does it matter?

May 19, 2010 by 1 Comment

EPEAT LogoEPEAT, which is an acronym for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, is a rating standard to help IT purchasers evaluate desktop computers, notebooks and monitors based on a larger variety of environmental attributes. It was launched in 2006 as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funded effort. It was developed over a three year period in an extensive consensus-based, EPA-funded process that included more than 100 representatives from environmental groups, government officials, large volume computer purchasers, subject matter experts, electronics recyclers, and manufacturers. The mandatory purchase of EPEAT products is being adopted by many organizations, including the US Federal Government, the Government of Canada and the State of California. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Green IT Tagged With: , , ,

EcoMade 101

May 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Ecomade LogoThe Issues

Technology improvements, as well as its increased usage, have enabled significant advantages to the standard of living of much of the developed world, and likely is a key to long term sustainability. However, technology can also have significant negative environmental impacts. Like all products, these impacts come from various stages of the product’s life: extraction of raw materials from the earth and their refinement, manufacturing processes to turn these raw materials into a finished product, use (and often re-use) of the product, and ultimately end-of-life collection, treatment, and disposal and/or recycling. On top of that, computers and most electronics have supply chains and customer bases that span the globe, so transportation throughout the product’s lifecycle is also significant.

It Starts and Ends with Product Design

Design will determine upwards of 90% of the environmental attributes of a product. Product design decides the materials used, the production processes, the supply chain as well as the product’s energy consumption during its life, and the efficiency of end-of-life recovery. Simply put, by purchasing environmentally preferable products purchasers send strong signals to manufacturers to design and manufacture greener products.

Filed Under: Green IT Tagged With: , , , ,