From Guest Blogger “QMatron” – How Can Your Business Save Energy?

Companies that want an environmentally friendly office building could follow the example of the Auckland office of Air New Zealand. The New Zealand national carrier, which is renowned for their innovative safety videos, has made their home in a building lovingly called The Hub, with 168,000 square feet of floor space, featuring massive windows on all sides to allow the New Zealand sunlight to naturally illuminate the interior. They’ve done away with cubicles, allowing the light to flow, and when artificial light becomes necessary, it’s reliant on motion sensor technology, so when an area is unattended for more than 15 minutes, the lights automatically turn off.The construction of such a building is a huge undertaking, and is probably beyond the budgetary limitations of many companies, just as making Lord of the Rings themed instructional videos can be, but there are many ways that you can design your office space in a way that saves energy, which of course has the happy coincidence of saving you money.

Lap, not desktop computers

Make the switch from desktop computers to laptops since they use far less power than their immovable counterparts while doing the same job. To truly minimize the use of computing electricity, consider using netbooks since the majority of these units use flash drives. This means that netbooks have no moving parts and with no need for interior cooling fans so that they use even less electricity. While it’s perhaps not practical to replace all desktop computers, you can save money by activating the energy saving mode on these models.

See the light

You can take a leaf out of Air New Zealand’s book and implement an open plan office to do away with cubicles that break up natural light and use motion sensor activated lighting systems that aren’t actually so expensive. Have a look at the LED (light emitting diode) bulbs to put in the ceiling and to replace any standard halogen bulbs. While they are considerably more expensive, LED bulbs will last for years longer than their halogen cousins while using less electricity. In time, as more and more residential and business buildings take up LED lighting, conventional bulbs will start to disappear, meaning that the overall production process for light bulbs becomes less expensive, and causes less pollution, since less of the units will be needed.

Fresh air

All electrical devices and internal combustion engines emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas and while you’re unlikely to be driving a car inside your office, you certainly have a lot of electrical devices. Look for devices that have a green rating, which are specially constructed to have reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and usually use less energy. While air pollution is a massive problem in some places more than others at least greenhouse gases are diluted when outside. But when they’re trapped inside, as they can be trapped inside your office, your air quality might be of a poor standard. It’s easily remedied in a natural way and having a lot of leafy indoor plants will keep your office air clean and healthy.

More and more of us are rather environmentally conscious while at home, diligently sorting through the recyclables and taking shorter showers, but this approach all too often goes out the window when we go to work. By following a few simple strategies and reaching out to environmental services to improve the office, we can easily do our bit to help Mother Nature, which has the added benefit of saving money. There might be a small cost involved in going green at work, but the cost benefits contribute to the long-term health of your business enterprise.