Green Office Blog

This month we will be looking at the tenth and final One Planet Living principle, which in my opinion is one of the most important principles for sustainable businesses – materials and products.  The principle encourages the use of materials from sustainable sources and promoting products which help consumers reduce their consumption. 

Covid-19 has seen a forced increase of company teams, customers, suppliers having to have more interactions online. The world is changing, and this forced disruption has forced businesses to think and operate differently. We have seen an increase in online meetings within our own company, which has had its challenges.  

Continuing with our series exploring the One Planet Living principles, the principle of “zero carbon energy” takes the spotlight this month.  This principle endorses making buildings energy efficient and supplying all energy with renewable's. 

Businesses committed to One Planet Living set the following goals with respects to zero carbon energy:

• To help customers save energy and reduce carbon emissions.
• To make all operations and supply chains energy efficient.
• To power all operations and supply chain through renewable energy.

Continuing with our series exploring the One Planet Living principles, the principle of “Zero Waste” takes the spotlight this month.  This principle focuses on reducing consumption (thereby reducing waste), reusing and recycling to achieve zero waste to landfill.  Businesses, suppliers and customers should be encouraged and supported to do the same. 

Continuing our series exploring Bioregional’s ten principles of One Planet Living, sustainable travel and transport takes the spotlight this month.  Can business travel and transport ever be sustainable? 

Considering that one will always leave a footprint, be it from the journey itself or the waste produced along the way, is sustainable travel achievable?  For us, sustainable travel means making conscious decisions about the travel requirements that we can control. 

Many businesses have transport needs that are essential for the day-to-day running of the business which cannot be completely controlled such as using a courier for deliveries.  However, staff business travel can certainly be controlled or managed in such a way that it has the least impact on the environment as possible.

Written by Chasthi Grant in collaboration with Riaan van Rensburg

Hello again and green greetings!

 Let’s recap from our previous blog post, Digitization in the Banking Industry…

• Green Office’s approach understands the digitisation end-goal, driving print to zero, entrenching and guiding the business towards a paperless utopia.
• Green Office has conducted varying sets of decompositions within the banking industry.
• Green Office will identify, assess, conduct user interviews, present the findings and advise the most sustainable solutions.

Continuing our series exploring Bioregional’s ten principles of One Planet Living, this month we will be looking at the culture and community principle.  The importance of instilling a culture of sustainability within staff and the community within which businesses operate cannot be overstated enough.  Bioregional’s culture and community principle encourages businesses to nurture local identity and heritage, empower communities and promote a culture of sustainable living.

A company interested in pursuing One Planet Living instills a culture of sustainability amongst staff, customers and suppliers.  Additionally, they strive to assist the community within which they operate financially and non-financially, such as donating staff time to a community project or undertaking a renovation project at a local school.

Written by James Tooley in collaboration with Wilma O'Neill

What are the main pain points for retailers when looking at managing their print environment?

When it comes to your print environment there are a lot of things to consider, but in retail there’s not always time to:

• Look for the best price
• Manage your hardware, contracts and stock
• While managing a store and trying to cut costs, you still need to find a way to be more sustainable.

Cost recovery in any business is essential. In law firms, it’s even more important to ensure that billable items land on clients’ invoices. Disbursements are often either manually tracked and billed, or it is isn’t recovered 100%. (This is an opportunity lost to generate an income for your business!)

Our preferred software for printing, telephony management and cost recovery is PaperCut.  Not a lot of companies know that PaperCut offers telephony billing, through an add-on module called, Revoco.  We’ve worked with various law firms of different sizes and for us, this software is a must.

Continuing our series exploring Bioregional’s ten principles of One Planet Living, the spotlight this month is on Land and Nature.  In having an academic background focused on the natural environment, this principle is close to my heart and promotes the protection and restoration of land and marine systems for the benefit of people and wildlife. 

The One Planet goals for land and nature include:

• To have a positive impact on natural ecosystems and prevent harm, from extraction to production, and retail;
• To source materials responsibly and eliminate the use of materials associated with the destruction of natural habitats; and
• To make a positive contribution to local biodiversity.