Environmental Leader

As part of NBC Universal’s “Green Week,” its affiliate CNBC published a piece on greening businesses.

Here are some tips:

1. Offer flexible employee commuter options
Encourage staff to give up cars by subsidizing the cost of mass transit tickets, offering telecommuting, or providing preferred parking spots for car-poolers or hybrid cars. Cisco System created 36 VIP parking spaces for cars that use biodiesel or ethanol.

2. Hit the lights
Replace incandescent light bulbs with CFLs which cost about 75 percent less to operate and last 10-times longer, according to Energy Star. Lime Energy recently outlined the steps involved for lighting retrofit projects and said installing motion sensors helps increase efficiency.

3. Cut the paper trail
The Worldwatch Institute says the average U.S. office worker goes through 12,000 sheets of paper a year. Requiring employees to use both sides of the paper at the printer helps reduce the paper trail. Investing in paper with higher percentage of recycled materials helps to reduce a company’s carbon footprint. A study by PayItGreen Alliance found that if one in five households switched to electronic bills, statements and payments, the collective impact would save 151 million pounds of paper, avoid filling 8.6 million household garbage bags with waste and avoid 2 million tons of GHG emissions.

4. Shutdown electronics
According to a Kaseya-sponsored survey, enterprises with 10,000 desktop workstations waste $1.26 million in energy costs annually. Converting desktops to laptops reduces energy costs as the average annual cost for laptop power consumption is around $23, around one-sixth of the energy cost of a desktop. Another option is to use software that turns computers off automatically.