Sherlock your way into reducing your carbon footprint
Posted by Rebecca McDaniel
By Amanda Mendonza, Technical Services Representative
We all want to know how we can reduce our carbon footprint, and some of us are tasked with actually doing it. If you are responsible for attacking your company’s carbon footprint, there are ways to go about it without looking like the green police. Send out a survey to a small group of people, maybe the head of each department, and ask questions regarding their department’s environmental behavior. This will set the base line for where waste originates. Ask about complaints their department has about waste, be it paper, equipment, etc., and ask them to list suggestions for improvement. More importantly, ask them why they haven’t implemented any of these waste minimization suggestions yet. You’ll find that sometimes a group just has tunnel vision about a waste-producing process. They know where they are with waste, they know where they want to be, but they are too busy to start implementing changes. You may want to take a leap of faith and ask them to point a finger at surrounding offending departments and get a sense for what they see beyond their own tunnel vision. Environmental detective work isn’t for the faint of heart, sometimes you have to be sneaky! As you continue your investigation about waste problems, you will find disconnects in the reasons people produce waste. Offer your new found insights and wait for the accolades and criticisms. Weigh them out and take action quickly. The more quickly you pull the cloth out from under the place setting the more quickly they’ll see the magic and realize change is good and waste minimization is extremely beneficial. Plus the cost savings will take effect immediately!
