Your actions and directions you give have a direct impact on how your office spends and uses its resources. Your task (among many other things) is to keep costs down while maintaining the required level of services and amenities the office needs for its proper function. You were most likely hired because of your ability and creativity in maintaining this delicate balance.

Adding sustainability to the mix may appear to be a daunting, if not counter-productive, element to your goals and job-effectiveness. Remember, you're creative - we'll use that in you to help "tweak" existing conditions to create a more sustainable office and ultimately - cut costs! If you are well versed in tracking progress, you will soon see how much impact you will have achieved in not only decreasing wastefulness, but maintain and even increase the bottom line. Now that is something to put in your resume!

• Education - not just for kids anymore
  Your decisions are based on your knowledge and ability. But as discussed under "creating a theme" below, the best decisions are based on your intimate knowledge of as many options there are for the business you're dealing with. Even if you are not completely familiar, the mere fact that you know options exist allows you to coordinate a small fact-finding session when needed.

New information and options are available everyday - the ability and willingness to search for it is essential. We hope this site will offer many of the alternates you need. In our well-established careers, having gone through much schooling and training, are set up to do the everyday tasks we come to work for. Is that it? No, it's not. We constantly learn because we'll always be human. Our willingness to learn is what gets more difficult with age, not ability.

• Wielding your powerful sword! - your impact on creative influence
  Office managers take on many roles - that's a major reason for the great impact. From ordering to coordinating to advising, the levels of influence are tremendous. This also means that the tools required to make sounds decisions also need to be available. Not necessarily memorizing everything, just a know-how of where to find it and fast. Our site is a pretty good place to start but we know we cannot cover every scenario. The important thing to start off with are the basic principles and reasons for doing / choosing a certain way. It will make the arguments and influences that much more convincing when you have the "wind" behind you. All the tools are there, just a matter of being able to communicate it effectively.

For example, an ability to convert much of the paper resources to computer would create a precedence. One ream of paper (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree! Printing also uses toner or ink and decreases printer life. Paper is mailed or handed off to people using man-power and other time / personnel / transportation resources. Email was created for this stuff! Let's try and put paper out of business like cell-phones did to pay-phones! There are immeasurable ways to accomplish this; we'll try to cover a few to get you started:

• You've heard of mail-merge, set-up e-mail-merge to email a document to everyone! From notices to guidelines, this is direct marketing.
• Set the default printer to pdf - it's much easier to organize and people can print if they really need to. If others do the same, it puts less strain on the printers and that means less strain on you!
• An easy to access and up to date intranet will keep people from printing often-used information-resources (phone lists, reference-guides, etc). Time saver! From construction coordination, schedules, reference-guides - everything could be at the fingertips of the company (and you).
• To digitize important documents, copiers can now be set up with email addresses so printing to email is easier than ever and should be encouraged. Information Technology experts can set this up.
Construction coordination involves not only schedules but trash as well. Dumpsters can fill up very quickly! From gypsum board to carpet to metal studs, buckets of construction waste is generated. Read the last heading under "The anatomy of trash" for an idea of something to set up.

Lighting, janitorial, service and maintenance, your role(s) define your time requirement. Your time requirement defines time efficiency. In other words, much of the non-consumption will decrease the complexity of what you're doing now. No more papers lost, far fewer trash, far less maintenance issues, and so on. It benefits you, your job, the company, the employees, and the environment.

• You're creating a theme - others will follow!
  Your ability to offer a theme and cut costs will be highly regarded. This, as you know, is also a creative task because finding alternatives to existing systems that delivers the same thing (or better) and probably at a lower cost takes knowledge and a dose of creativity. The important thing to remember is to try and keep the usefulness and use (two different things) of the approval in mind. From simple office and client items to trips and major reservations. Because you cannot possibly do all the research for all the approvals yourself, it's up to the individual requesting it to maintain the established theme.

Let's talk about this "theme." An approach to all your business dealings will be handled with a sub-surface level of overall care. This care is a conscientious attempt to choose companies and systems that also follow sustainable principles, lower consumption on every level possible, and reduce waste. Generally this will also have a wonderful component of saving tremendous amounts of money but that's just a great by-product of reducing consumption. It's measurable, but that's not the theme. Also, and to be blunt, you can sell that your company is environmentally aware, you cannot sell that your company is cheap.

Others will follow - your care in the themed direction will inevitably raise awareness and heightened consciousness of the rest of the employees (as well as clients). It's far more powerful to be part of a global need than just a company's need. Their level of acceptance is dependent upon the questions they ask of themselves and their own actions. If you're just "saving money," that's just smart business. If you're choosing based on a "common good," they will inquire about what "that good" is. When they find out that it involves them as well, that's a theme to follow!

• Supplies, supplies, and more supplies!
  Depending on your company's function, the supplies you regularly need vary. You may have a dedicated vendor from which all comes through eliminating guesswork and shopping around. Costs may be reduced due to this bulk purchasing as well. Business changes, prices change, product availability changes, basically - things change. What we mean by this is that it's worthwhile to check over the expenditures and see what and where things can be substituted or eliminated.

Packaging material - if your business receives and sends packages regularly, the packing material can be saved from incoming and re-used for the outgoing. Why pay for it when someone already has! From pop-corn to bubble wrap to paper, just save it!

Cups and plates and utensils should and can be re-evaluated. If the employees use these regularly, asking the firm to start using silverware and mugs would eliminate thousands of pounds of waste from your bins (as well as costs in buying them). This is one for the sustainability committee if one is established (they can come up with creative ways to have the firm reduce, re-use, and recycle) making your life and purchases much simpler! The remaining ones needed can and should be biodegradable to eliminate the waste completely once it leaves the firm.

Paper can be reduced from proper techniques in reducing prints. Lighting from bulk purchases of long-life incandescents or compact fluorescents.

Once you read through the "anatomy of trash" below, you may also be able to use those services for your company's needs! There is no shame in a firm acquiring re-claimed, it's actually frugal, useful, and extremely sustainable!

The anatomy of trash
One person's trash is another person's treasure! Depending on the size of your company, the location, and make-up of the employees, the "refuse" that any firm generates has innate value placed upon them if just inquired. For example, if you have the task of having some doors replaced, the old doors are most likely worthwhile to fellow employees for reconstruction. And if not them, they can easily put out a word of its immediate availability.

For a professional stance on material re-allocation, there are several avenues which can be taken (depending on where you live). California Materials Exchange is designed to help businesses find markets for items that would ordinarily be thrown away (800.553.2962). Habitat for humanity is a non-profit organization that builds housing for low income families. There are also local surplus building centers dedicated to capturing and re-selling building materials. Preferably, however, the employees could have them!

A system can be set up where construction and other materials that are no longer needed can be set aside, email sent out to the firm describing what it is, and more than likely it will be picked up and hauled away by a fellow employee. This includes old shelving, table tops, metal for recycling (they command a great return these days!), boxes, glass panes, carpeting, etc. Essentially, given some creativity to its use, most everything can be re-used or re-constituted into something else. This is beneficial for everyone - including the firm as very little trash will need to be hauled away. If no email is sent out, you can have a dedicated spot for rummaging through.

Once it's been picked through and all "good" stuff taken by the employees, then it can go through another step, online. Freecycle.org and Craigslist.org are wonderful means of communication that something is available for the taking. Freecycle is an online community-based exchange of items. You post what you have and others inquire to pick them up. This is free and it's recycling. Craigslist is also a free online classifieds area but you can actually sell anything. There is a "free" area for anything ready for the taking - and people will be emailing! If the company has a sustainability-committee, this is a perfect task for them - eliminate as much waste from your dumpsters as possible through these and other connections. There is a need for most everything - just a matter of connecting to the ones who need. This one extra step of connection makes all the difference!

Again, contact us if you feel we left out something crucial and/or need to update something. This is for your reference - it grows with you!

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