Simple ways to be green in home office

Whether working or relaxing there are many ways to be green in a home office. Recycling, replacing light bulbs, turning off electronics when not being used are a few steps you can take for starters.

Taking simple steps to use "green" ideas will reduce the cost of energy and supplies in your home office while you are reducing the impact on the environment. At first glance most of these are small items but the cumulative effect is worth the effort.

Better Homes and Gardens
November 12, 2007

How to Be "Green" in the Home Office

Published: 11/12/07, 2:36 PM EDT

Paper

Good: Print and copy on both sides of the paper. Better: Use tree-free paper and recycle. Best: Go as paperless as possible: send e-mails with attachments, write notes on a white board or in a computer program. Bonus: Shred waste material for packing.

Computers

Good: Use the energy saver settings on your computer and printer. Better: Turn off your computer at the end of the day. Best: Unplug your computer (and other electronics) to keep them from leeching "phantom" energy -- electricity they draw even while turned off.

Lighting

Good: Turn off all lights when you leave the room. Better: Replace your lightbulbs with compact fluorescents or LED lights. Best: Paint the walls of your office a light color to take advantage of natural light, preventing you from turning on the lights in the first place.

The Little Things

Good: Reuse paper clips or at least recycle them, otherwise all the extra metal goes straight to the landfill. Better: Don't use rubber bands anymore -- they're made from crude oil and have serious health effects when they're incinerated at the landfill. Best: Refill ink cartridges rather than buying new ones.

Green building catching on in RTP

RTI International, one of the early residents of Research Triangle park, has started construction on a 120,000-square-foot office building designed to meet the Earth-friendly standards of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system.

Green construction is becoming popular with area companies and builders as a way to be more environmentally conscious and hold down energy costs. The project features systems that save water and electricity, reduce the need for heating and air conditioning, and a data center that will help heat the building.

News & Observer
October 10, 2007
Jack Hagel, Staff Writer
RTI starts on green building

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK -- RTI International today started on its greenest building yet.

The fast-growing think tank, which has earmarked $100 million for a face lift and expansion at its 180-acre Research Triangle Park campus, broke ground on a 120,000-square-foot office building designed to meet the Earth-friendly standards of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system.

The council established the system in 2000 to promote energy-efficient construction.

Developers earn points by incorporating features such as systems that save water and electricity and reduce the need for heating and air conditioning.

The RTI project, which is being built by Duke Realty, will include dozens of environmentally friendly features such as insulated windows and a data center designed to help heat the building. It is to be complete in about a year.

RTI has about 2,600 employees in 40 countries, including 2,100 in the Triangle. The nonprofit's work includes helping establish democratically elected local governments in Iraq, finding new ways to control malaria and more. Original article...

Cheery shopping versus shopping sprawl in Pittsboro

New shopping centers in the area don't have to be all asphalt parking spaces and concrete box stores. Most development now comes with a predictable sequence of construction steps - clearcut the land, remove all signs of trees and vegetation, build long lines of strip shopping stores or scatter big box stores all around a huge expanse of land, then at the end of the proccess come back and pave any remaining soil in the area with asphalt and concrete. To top it off, put up lots of signs, a few stoplights and a tower of store names on signs by the road and call it progress.

It's all about greed and profit. Builders make every effort to cut costs and maximize profits on any construction project and shopping centers are a showplace for the lack of interest in how the community and shopping should blend. If town planners and Boards of Commissioners don't require that trees be left or added back after construction, new areas end up with no greenery at all.

Look around at every new major construction project and you will find one or more builders that control the design and construction to carve out every penny of profit, then heads home every night to live in a mega-mansion and drives to the coast on weekends to a mega-mansion multi-floor beach home.

Read the commentary by Dan Cahoon published in the Chatham County Journal Weekly about development trends in the area and what happens when new development comes in...

Chatham Journal Weekly
August 6, 2007
Dan Cahoon

Shop till you drop at cheery shopping centers

Pittsboro, NC - There are many reasons why a shopping center or large paved area may be a bad idea for the area in question. Any development creates change in the landscape and what we see around us. Trees get downed, meadows and wetland plowed under. That would happen with any kind of development.

A shopping center would require the kinds of parking areas that concentrate runoff with other byproducts of current automobile use. Retail establishments require large amounts of water use and little of it is released in a pure state back into the environment. These types of effects upon our local environment and overburdened waste water treatment facilities are unacceptable to me and to many others.

I also like clean, well maintained buildings in which to purchase needs and luxuries, however, I do not care for over lighted, over air conditioned, over priced, understaffed discount and full priced retail establishments. They do not serve my needs and in the long run lead to urban and rural blight. They stop being cheery and wonderful after a few years and start looking seedy and useless.

I have shopped in these sorts of stores before and found many excellent customer
service representatives along with affordable products. I am not wealthy and so
pinch a few pennies occasionally. At my age though, I find quality to be worth higher prices. Junk is junk n0 matter what price.

I have also had many unpleasant experiences in those types of retail establishments both as an employee and as a customer. Outside interests rarely invest in local communities in a sustainable manner. Workers do earn standard minimum wages but the profits from these businesses leave the community and hurt local merchants.

Industry does not have to look like a factory or something like RTP. I actually find the park like atmosphere of some factories to resemble a campus. The industry the area in question is zoned for is not just for plants and big trucks. It could also be quiet research based industries that use green building and innovative facilities to save water and energy. These places can be managed in a way that helps people live the way they want and need, with less stress and more understanding.

We already have wonderful businesses in Pittsboro that are like this. We don't see them as an eyesore because they don't stand out like a sore thumb, or a Wal-mart, Marshall's, Dollar Tree, or giant hulking movie theater. The people who work there make sustainable wages and so stay in the area instead of moving away to get a "real" job.

Industry is a broad term that should be considered in context. The issue surrounding Pittsboro Plunder....um Place is one of zoning. Many people are alarmed at how fast zoning changes are being enacted. If the area is rezoned then there might not necessarily be a charming business and residential center built there. Some other developer might use the rezoning to outbid Pittsboro Place and come up with a different and not so charming "place".

This type of situation is about profit. The developers and land owners are hoping to cash in on investment. We understand. We like money. We need money, for living and the support of community. We want those local people who have invested to cash in, hang around and spend locally.

I hope we see some good sustainable development of the industrial area off of 64 East, soon! We are a great town for families and intelligent kind people to make home. They won't come here and settle and help us grow into the community we want to be if there is a failed shopping center and urban chaos like we see in Siler City, Ramseur, Cary and now Apex.

We also have large scale energy industry already in that area that needs room to grow. If you haven't seen the organic farm and
greenhouses at Piedmont Biofuels then you should go take a look. It is amazing and will change your outlook on Pittsboro Place. The bio farm and other facilities are the kind of industry we need, want and have. Original article...

Consumer electronics going green

All those neat high-tech electronic gadgets we use often are consuming energy even when we aren't using them. Most use low levels of power to retain settings, power indicator lights, maintain connectivity and stay ready to use instantly when we pick them up.

According to Jennifer Amann, consumer electronics expert for the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy in Washington said "What most people don't know is that consumer electronics use considerable energy when in standby mode or even turned off. That downtime flow maintains internal clocks, indicator lights, preference settings, remote control responsiveness and other features and accounts for about 40 percent of electronics power consumption." A separate Ecos report due out in September will provide more information on this issue.

News and Observer
July 24, 2007
Frank Norton, Staff Writer

Electronics Going green
Makers of computers, MP3 players and other popular gadgets are heeding consumers' call to be eco-friendly. New devices use less energy, have fewer toxins and are easier to recycle. The companies' challenge? To lower prices.

Mark Pierce of Lenovo was jolted in August when Greenpeace ranked the Chinese-American PC maker dead last for green credentials out of 14 consumer electronics brands.

Pierce, Lenovo's environmental chief, was duty-bound to fix the situation or risk the company's fledgling U.S. image -- it had recently opened new world headquarters in Morrisville.

He began meeting regularly with Greenpeace officials to determine what Lenovo needed to do. The company committed to phase out hazardous chemicals from all products by 2009 and initiated a global hardware recycling program. It worked. Within a year Lenovo had soared to the top of Greenpeace's quarterly chart and has remained near the top since.

The intensity of that turnaround exemplifies the fervor of consumer-electronics makers to be green, or at least be considered so. For the first time, virtually all major brands including Dell, HP, Apple, Sony and Motorola are ramping up efforts to put cleaner, more efficient and more easily recyclable products in stores. Read more...