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Switch lights off in empty rooms. You could cut your lighting costs by as much as 15%, just by making sure you turn lights off in rooms and corridors that aren’t being used. [1]

Don’t turn up the heating unless you really need to. Unless it’s just too cold for comfort, try to keep your thermostat at 19°C. Your heating costs will go up by 8% each time you increase the temperature by just one degree. [1]

Maintain your equipment properly. If you don’t regularly check your heating equipment, you could be adding as much as 10% to your heating bill without knowing it. [1]

Vending machines v kettles. It is cheaper to provide a kettle for staff who work outside normal business hours than to continue to run a drinks vending machine during these times. [1]

Turn computers off. A single computer and monitor left on 24 hours a day will cost over £50 a year. Switching them off out of hours and enabling standby features could reduce this to £15 a year each and prolong the lifespan of equipment. [1]

Lighten up. Replacing high wattage flament lamps or tungsten halogen lamps with compact fuorescent lamps or metal halide lamps will give energy savings of 65-75%. [1]

Print double sided. If you have purchased a printer or copier with duplex capability, make sure that it gets used. Set machines to print double-sided as a default. Paper use can also be reduced by encouraging users to print more than one page per side of A4 – known as ‘N-up’ printing. [2]

Explore alternative fnishing options: using A5 and creating a booklet will halve the amount of paper used – not everything has to be in A4. [3]

Reduce excessive e-mail printing.When replying to e-mail messages most users have Outlook set to ‘Include original message text’. A long exchange can lead to several pages of text, which can waste paper when printing the most recent message. To save all the unnecessary printing of e-mails, select ‘Tools’ on the Outlook menu bar, then select ‘Options’, then ‘Preferences’, select ‘E-mail Options’ and under ‘On replies and forwards’ choose ‘Attach original message’. [2]

Reduce the number of print devices. Use multifunctional MFDs instead of printers, copiers and scanners. [4]

Reduce uncollected output: when people print to networked printers, people often forget to collect their print outs, resulting in piles of uncollected documents. Using Secure Print solutions will eliminate this waste. Because staff will need to use a swipe card or personal ID to print the document, they will be there to collect it. [3]

Turn off copiers and printers at night. Switch your nearest copiers and printers off at the main switch overnight and on weekends. A copier left on overnight generates enough energy to print 5,400 pages. [2]

Network Projectors. Businesses with a feet of installed projectors can make considerable energy savings by turning projectors on or off remotely, on an ad hoc basis or at pre-programmed times. [6]

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Think big

“We’re currently introducing 24-inch monitor screens for everyone in our offces to increase productivity and reduce waste paper. So far, half the staff have the larger monitor screens and we’ve already seen real benefts. The larger screens allow people to view up to two full A4 pages simultaneously, making it far easier to proof-read documents and reducing the need to print documents purely for proofng. They also allow laptop users who have docking stations to use two screens at once – their laptop and the larger screen. This enables them to copy and paste documents from one screen to another and has given productivity a major boost.”

Phil Jones, sales and marketing director, Brother UK

Six out of 10 of respondents to a recent Canon survey said that eco-effciency in the offce was someone else’s responsibility. But even if you can’t persuade the board to install smart electricity meters or make duplex printing the default setting on printers, you can still do your bit by implementing some of the following energy or waste-saving measures.

Stop the waste

[1] The Carbon Trust [2] Tracey Rawling-Church, Kyocera [3] Andy Vickers, managing director for Canon UK & Ireland [4] Xerox [5] Ricoh [6] Mark Karsey, Business Manager, Epson UK