eco-officiency blog » Recommended Resources

Calculate Your Impact and Footprint

eco-officiency — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:00:25 +0000

There are a host of calculators out there to help you or your office determine your impact. Once your impact is known then create a goal of how you would like to reduce it. Here are a few of my favorites to get you started:

Global Footprint Network: A good overall calculator on general green footprint

Household Savings Calculator: Developed by the NRDC to track home energy savings

Water Calculator: Developed by H2O Conserve this measures water consumption.

Xerox Sustainability Calculator: A great calculator that measures the overall impact a company’s printers and copiers have on the environment.

Consider CarShare Programs to Enchance Alternative Transportation Options

eco-officiency — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 05:00:13 +0000

Many offices are encouraging their employees to carpool or take public transportation to work. Public transportation or carpooling may work well to get to the office, but can be a hindrance when trying to get to outside meetings during the day. Consider joining a carshare that will alleviate the need to have a company car but support alternative transportation programs within your company. Most carshare programs have online or phone reservation systems. Cars are usually parked in convenient areas around urban areas.

Here are some recommended carshare programs;

eGo CarShare is a carshare service located in the greater Boulder/Denver area.
ZipCar is a national carshare program. They have locations in most major U.S. Cities and around University campuses.
CarSharing.net is a directory of other local carsharing companies across the U.S.

Google Maps Adds Bike Directions

eco-officiency — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:54:39 +0000

Google Maps

Google just added to their Google Maps a way to search for directions via bike. Just go to Google Maps and click on ‘Bicycling Directions” or ‘Bike There’ link. This new service shows you options to get from one location to another via bike paths in that area. This was a joint effort with multiple bicycle organizations including Rails to Trails Conservancy that support about 12,000 miles of bike trails.

This is a great link to share with friends and colleagues who would like to bike but not sure the best route to take that is safe and on designated trails.

For more information about this new bike direction Google service to go Google Maps Bike There blog or see the press release by Rails to Trails.

Green Route Denver- A map of Denver green businesses

eco-officiency — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:00:04 +0000

Green Route Denver

A new resource has arrived in Denver. Green Route Denver is a map that showcases businesses and organizations that are green. The map is distributed in downtown Denver retail locations and also available via PDF download on their site.

The organization also offers guided tours of organizations. See website for more details.

Update Your Fax and Save Paper

eco-officiency — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:00:02 +0000

E-mail and scanners have all but made the fax machine a thing of the past, but most offices can’t quite give them up yet. The good news is there are now Online Faxes that allow you all the convenience of a fax machine, but use less paper, and offer other benefits:

Lower Cost
More Efficient Use of Time
More Reliable
Environmentally Responsible
Security

How it works:

Sending: When sending faxes, you log in to the fax website and upload the document. If the document is already a file on your hard drive, you simply upload it like an e-mail attachment. If you only have a hard copy, you’ll need to scan it, save it, then upload it. On the receiving end, the recipient will get a paper hard copy, just like you had sent it via traditional fax (unless they too have an online fax).

Receiving: When receiving incoming faxes, rather than a paper print out, you get an e-mail with an attachment. If you need to print it you can, otherwise you can just save it to the appropriate folder on your hard drive.

All those unwanted faxes, just hit delete – no need to save them to your desktop, waste paper. Need another reason? Most spam fax comes through whether you want it to or not, that means it gets printed, and you have to pay for the paper.

Collect Your Bottle Caps- Aveda is Recycling Them!

eco-officiency — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:00:42 +0000

Aveda now has a cap program that will recycle bottle caps, a material that has been in the past un-recycleable. They will accept all screw caps that are hard plastic, usually the #5 in the recycle arrows located on the inside of the cap. This includes twist tops on bottles, flip tops from tube or food products and other screw like-type rigid lids. Please don’t send them any flexible or soft lids on tubs. For more details on the type of caps and where to send them, contact Aveda directly at capcollection@aveda.com.

One more material that we can keep out of the landfill!

United Airlines Offers Carbon Calculator to offset Travel Footprint

eco-officiency — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:11:40 +0000

United has jumped on the carbon offset bandwagon and worked with Sustainable Travel International to develop a carbon calculator that is customized to traveler’s itinerary. The calculator takes into account the carbon footprint that results from each flight also taking into account load factors and fuel usage. The calculator will suggest a tax deductible carbon offset donation that United will process.

State of Green Business 2009

eco-officiency — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:08:12 +0000

Greenbiz.com has released its second report for 2009 on the State of Green Business. A great overview of various business sustainability sectors. It reviews various measures, best practices and successes of companies and the area in general. Could provide for some companies good baseline targets, metrics and goals to reach in the coming year.

SCORE Assessment

eco-officiency — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:02:50 +0000

A great new easy assessment tool, SCORE is a sustainability self-assessment that identifies opportunities to improve sustainability performance within small and medium sized companies. It also provides a baseline measure against other companies who have taken SCORE to determine where a company lies with sustainability measures within different departmental areas. It was developed by AXIS Performance Advisors in conjunction with the International Sustainable Development Foundation and the Zero Waste Alliance. On their website, they have licensed facilitators to administer SCORE, including eco-officiency who services the Denver/ Boulder metro area.

Environmental Leader: eNewsletter

eco-officiency — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:01:02 +0000

Environmental Leader is a great web newsletter that focuses on the latest news for business and sustainability. The daily briefing provides information on what companies are doing to become more green in their operations. It also provides information to newly released white papers and research on various topics related to sustainable business. It is an excellent source of information to learn about new ideas and resources related to corporate social and environmental responsibility!