The "Three Rs" of being environmentally friendly that we grew up with has evolved into "Five Rs": Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and now, Repair and Rethink. Taking all five Rs into consideration — especially the rethinking part — here are few easy ways to go green in the office, and often save money in the process.

​

Power Savings by Automation

Would you believe that the majority of office power is consumed by machines that are off, but still plugged into a live outlet? Standby power (or phantom power) is a huge — and hugely unnecessary — environmental culprit and expense. You can improve this process and automate it with programs like Surveyor, which automatically powers down company computers at night.

​

Take a walk around your office and notice how many offices and conference rooms have lights on despite nobody using the space. Instead of leaving it to employees to turn off lights as they leave rooms, install motion-activated light switches. They'll turn the lights on for a designated period of time (eg: 15 minutes) whenever somebody passes in front of the switch or moves about the room.