Economic downturn has hit almost every countries of the world. Many firms has close down or either downsize their manpower to save on operational cost. Others were revisiting every aspect of their companies operation to check and see what possible action they could take to reduce their carbon print. Some companies consider these hard times as good days for greening their data center.

There are a number of things that you can do in your business to easily and cheaply jump on the green bandwagon and saving your organization a few dollars at the same time you help reduce your impact on the planet.

All of us can take a little step in our everyday lives to contribute on saving energy. Take action now and part of the many who make difference by taking small steps to help conserve energy. Your actions to help reduce global warming can be extended from how you personally reduce your own emission to your workplaces and businesses. For those who are not into it yet, here’s a guide to help you reduce your carbon footprint.

Carbon Footprint?

According to CarbonFootprint.com,
“A Carbon Footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.” Add up everything you do that uses carbon – that’s your carbon footprint.”

Ways for your Company to Save on Energy and Reduce Carbon Footprint:

• Do you know that you can save energy by using Blackle search engine instead of Google?
• Virtualizing your server hardware to fewer boxes will save you money both in hardware and in energy savings.
• Recyle printer/photocopier papers. There are many ways to RECYCLE! other items which you should be doing by now.
• Instead of just recycling used printer paper, force duplex printing if your printers have this feature. This allows you to print on both sides of paper which can save on costs and energy.
• Reduce the need to copy and print. Trimming your paper use is one way to save money—those reams of paper aren’t cheap! Print only when you need to.
• When you need to, copy and print on both sides of the paper
• Set up a bulletin board for memos rather than sending copies to each employee.
• Remind you friends and officemates to print less by adding a green email signature or green taglines.
• Avoid “phantom” load. The surest way to kill a phantom load is to simply pull the plug.
• Turn off and unplug electronic devices from the wall when you’re not using them.
• Even when they’re not on, desktop PCs consume a small amount of electricity. Ask your employees to turn their computers off at night which will eliminate this trickle of power. Be warned, however, that by doing so will also eliminate your ability to perform automatic nightly maintenance on desktop computers since they will be unable to receive any communication from the network.
• Unplug the chargers. When your employees aren’t charging their cell phones and other devices, ask them to unplug their chargers. Even when not actively charging anything, chargers do consume power.
• Use fluorescent light bulb in place of incandescent light bulb-save on cost and energy and they last longer.
• Use programmable thermostat to automatically adjust your heating and cooling system.
• Buy and support green power product.
• Choose and buy Energy Star certified computers, monitors and other electronic devices.
• Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner.
• Instead of traveling for business so much, do a web conference when you can!
• Work from home. One of the greenest ways and worth considering on how to cut back on your office operating costs is to send your employees home to work.
• Check your settings. Aside from making sure that you turn off the lights when you leave your office, keeping and making sure your computers and printers are in energy-saving mode so they’ll shut off during long idle time and endless meetings. You will appreciate the result you see your bills start coming down.
• Upgrade computers. Before filling-in the purchase order request for the newest model in the market, consider looking on what programs and operating capacities that your employees will need and then try to upgrade and improve, instead of replace whenever possible. Small changes like adding memory and using LCD vs CRT can make a big difference.

No one is expected to do every tip, but doing any one of these will surely help.