A company can begin to green their operations today with no capital investment

This is an article I wrote for the website (www.emqus.com) where I work.  I really liked it, and I wanted to put it in my blog too.  It is amazingly simple to start greening a company.  And little steps that can be taken now with no cost whatsoever can turn into bigger steps that cost money in the beginning, but pay for themselves and then start saving the company money in the long-term.  

There are a lot of ways a company can go green.  Most of them require an initial investment.  A company could buy newer, more energy-efficient IT infrastructure, invest in CFL or LED lighting, invest in power management software or consolidate servers to ensure that they are running at their maximum capacity.  

All of these things net a positive return on the initial investment, but they do require an initial outlay of cash.  If an organization that wants to go green simply cannot find any money in the budget to begin the process, here are some things that they can do today to help the environment and their bottom-line at no cost.  

1) Turn computers off at the end of the day.  Leaving PCs on all night wastes energy, costs organizations millions in electricity costs and contributes to carbon emissions.

2) The last person to leave any room, be it the server room, the conference room or their office, should be responsible for turning off the lights.  Using less electricity means emitting less carbon, but it also means a smaller electric bill.

3) Think before printing anything.  Can it simply be saved in a folder? Made into a PDF?  Paper comes from trees, and the fewer trees we have, the less carbon dioxide they are scrubbing from the atmosphere.

4) Reuse paper from printers, copiers and fax machines.  Often, documents print incorrectly or a document is put in the copier upside down.  Reuse that paper.  Simply put it back.  In addition, if a hard copy of a document is necessary, but it is for internal use only, why not print it on remnant paper?  Turn that unwanted document over and print on the other side.

5) Recycle.  This does take a little effort, but really, how hard is it to have a few bins around the office where people can put paper, plastic, aluminum, batteries and even printer cartridges?  If an organization makes it standard procedure to recycle, then it will just become second-nature for people to do it. 

6) Encourage people to bring in unwanted coffee mugs, dishware and cutlery for the office kitchen instead of buying one-use paper, plastic and styrofoam products.  

These are just a few of the ways that companies can go green at no cost.  This is not an exhaustive list.  The possibilities are endless. Get employees excited about being green.  Have a brainstorming session and ask everyone for their input.  Each organization has an opportunity to make an investment in the future with no money down.