Issue 2 of The Sustainable Times Magazine - download and see what we had in our 2nd issue. The perceived expense of green IT has caused many to question its prospects during the current economic crisis. While it is true that purchasers may opt for cheaper, less energy-effi cient products, we believe that the core principles of sustainability and resource management have never been more relevant and are confi dent that 2009 will be a breakthrough year in sustainable business practices.

1. WINTER 2008/9
Green
Certification
Paper Merchants
Fight Back
Top Ten
Recycled Chairs
Office Lighting
Recycling Office
Furniture
Putting Waste
to Work
Green Tips
Does your printer supplier
tick BOTH boxes?
?
ENVIRONMENTALLY
RESPONSIBLE
?
ETHICALLY
SOUND
Brother does!
For the second year running Brother has come top of
the Ethical Company Organisation’s results in each of
our product categories.
Green from the ground up... page 17

2. For a number of years care and concern f the environment h always b of paramount
b
f
d
for h
has l
been f
importance to the edding company. Our pens and markers have contained only the safest
ingredients for many years. Many of the products are refillable, and even some of the nibs
are replaceable, where appropriate. In recent years, we have installed modern, efficient
production processes including a photovoltaic plant to generate electricity, and have also
incorporated the use of recycled paper. Today we are proud to announce the introduction
of four markers, whose caps and barrels
are made predominately from recycled
material, or a renewable resource. The
new range includes: permanent markers
in a bullet and chisel tip, a bullet-tipped
boardmarker and a chisel-tipped highlighter.
For more information, please go to www.edding-ag.com/environment

3. COMPETITION : COMPETITION : COMPETITION : COMPETITION
Win a carbon footprint audit and 12 months’ worth of free offsets
How big is your
Welcome to the second issue of Sustainable Times,
your guide to green office products and services.
carbon footprint?
The perceived expense of green IT has caused many to
question its prospects during the current economic crisis.
While it is true that purchasers may opt for cheaper,
less energy-efficient products, we believe that the core
principles of sustainability and resource management
have never been more relevant and are confident that
2009 will be a breakthrough year in sustainable business
practices. May you all have a happy, prosperous and
green 2009!.
A new carbon footprint calculator on
the Carbon Neutral Company website
gives businesses a simple, fourstep procedure for measuring their
greenhouse gas emissions. If you’re
feeling lucky, you could even win a free
carbon assessment for your business,
plus 12 months’ worth of free offsets.
All you have to do to be in with
a chance is enter CarbonNeutral
Company’s small business survey
(details at the bottom of the page).
James Goulding, Editor
STEP ONE
Collect your data. The more you complete
of these questions, the more accurate
your carbon footprint will be:
1. What is the total area of your office
space (m2)?
2. What is your annual electricity, gas and
oil consumption in KwH?
3. How much non-recycled waste does
your company produce per year (kg)?
4. What is the annual distance or fuel
consumption of company owned
vehicles?
5. What is the annual business travel
distance or fuel consumption in noncompany owned vehicles?
6. How many business journeys are taken
by taxi or train per year?
7. How many long/short haul flights
are taken per year?
8. What is the number of overnight stays
in hotels per year?
9. What is the annual commuting
distance by staff?
CONTENTS
03 Competition
04 Agenda
11 Green Labels
17 Cover Story:
Brother minimises
environmental impact
19 Lighting
20 Recycling Office
Furniture
12 Pulp & Paper
22 Managed Print
The paper industry
Services
answers its critics
14 Sustainable Seating 25 Office Moves
26 What’s New
Ten of the best
recycled office chairs
28 Top Tips
Manufacturer
Accreditation Schemes
Editor
James Goulding 01962 771862 jamesg@binfo.co.uk
Advertising Director
Ethan White 01474 824711 ethan@binfo.co.uk
Publishing Director
Neil Trim 07803 087229 dd 01737 249408 neil@binfo.co.uk
Sustainable Times is a supplement of Business Info Magazine.
It is published by Kingswood Media Ltd., 4 New Cottages,
Green Farm Lane, Shorne, Kent DA12 3HQ.
Tel: 01474 824711. Email: info@binfo.co.uk
No part of Sustainable Times can be reproduced without prior written
permission of the publisher. © 2009 Kingswood Media Ltd.
The paper used in this magazine is obtained from manufacturers who
operate within internationally recognized standards.
The paper is made from Elementary Chlorine Free (ECF) pulp, which is
sourced from sustainable, properly managed forestation.
STEP TWO
Simply log onto The Small Business
Calculator and enter your data:
http://www.carbonneutral.com/
business-carbon-calculator
STEP THREE
Press the ‘Calculate’ button, and your
carbon footprint will be calculated
automatically. You can see where the
majority of your CO2 emissions are
coming from.
STEP FOUR
You can instantly reduce your carbon
footprint to net zero by selecting the
‘Offset Your Emissions’ button. For every
1 tonne of CO2 you produce, you will
be paying for 1 tonne to be saved by
climate-friendly projects around the
world.
If you want to go one step further,
you could select the ‘Become a
CarbonNeutral Company’ button.
This will give you an independent and
audited carbon assessment; a report
on ways to internally reduce your CO2
emissions; advice on external reductions
through offsetting; and marketing help to
communicate what you have done.
When you have reduced your
emissions to net zero through the
CarbonNeutral programme, you will be
awarded the CarbonNeutral® brand mark
for use across your collateral.
www.carbonneutral.com/businesscarbon-calculator
WIN A FREE CARBON AUDIT
The CarbonNeutral Company is eager
to find out what small businesses
think about climate change, carbon
footprinting and carbon offsetting
and has produced a small online
questionnaire on the subject that will
take no longer than five minutes to
complete.
All responses are completely
confidential and businesses are not
required to submit any contact details
unless they would like to enter a prize
draw to receive a CarbonNeutral® small
business package (a free carbon footprint
audit of your business plus the reduction
of your carbon footprint to ‘net zero’
for one year – up to a maximum of
100tCO2).
To view the survey and enter the prize
draw please go to www.carbonneutral.
com/sbsurvey
COMPETITION : COMPETITION : COMPETITION : COMPETITION
PEFC/16-33-595
CU-CoC-810614

4. greenAgenda
Reverse vending turns trash into cash
Stagecoach Group Chief
Executive Brian Souter
launches Scotland’s
first reverse vending
recycling scheme at
the Ellon Park and Ride
facility in Aberdeenshire
Aberdeen residents can look forward
to discounted bus journeys following
the launch of Scotland’s first
reverse vending recycling project
by Stagecoach and Aberdeenshire
Council.
An automatic reverse vending
machine at the Ellon Park and Ride
facility allows commuters to exchange
used drinks cans and plastic bottles for
Stagecoach Green points.
Green points can be redeemed for
discounted bus travel at a rate of
50 green points for a 20p travel voucher
and 100 points for a 50p voucher.
Users receive one Green point for every
item recycled.
The reVend FR 600 supplied by
the Reverse Vending Corporation
automatically sorts cans and bottles and
prints a ticket for every item recycled.
It has a capacity of 2,000 items.
Earlier in 2008, Stagecoach launched
a partnership with Perth and Kinross
Real Nappy Network (PKRNN) to
offer a week’s free bus travel to anyone
who signed up for PKRNN’s real
nappy service.
www.stagecoachgroup.com
www.reversevending.co.uk
London Remade award winners announced
In 2008, the combined purchases of Londonbased organisations that have signed up to the
Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code
diverted 72,490 tonnes of waste from landfill.
According to London Remade, this is enough
waste to fill 187 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The 126 signatories to the Mayor of London’s
Green Procurement Code spent £306 million on
sustainable and recycled products and services from
more than 500 suppliers. Purchases included 5,074
remanufactured printer cartridges; 23,840
bags of fairtrade tea; 21 energy-efficient
streetlamps; and 892,366 reams of recycled
paper. The purchase of recycled
paper alone resulted in the equivalent
savings of 36,958 trees, 5,000m3 of landfill
space and 65,214,107m3 of water.
The winners of the 2008 Awards for
outstanding achievement were Mapeley
Estates Ltd, London Fire Brigade, the London
Borough of Barking and Dagenham and Transport
for London.
The Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code
is a free support service set up to help Londonbased organisations reduce their environmental
impact through responsible purchasing.
www.greenprocurementcode.co.uk
The Award trophy is made from recycled glass
encapsulating a length of reclaimed copper.
HP to offer long-lasting Sonata laptop batteries
HP is to offer Boston-Power’s long-lasting Sonata Lithium-ion (Li-ion)
battery cell as an upgrade option on select HP consumer notebooks.
HP Enviro Series program notebook batteries with Sonata technology are
claimed to deliver ‘like-new performance’ for three years, unlike other
batteries that start to deteriorate after three to six months.
The use of longer-lasting batteries has environmental benefits as it reduces the
need to replace batteries so often – according to a recent Harris Interactive poll,
40% of consumers who have owned a notebook for three years or more have
replaced the battery as many as five times.
In the same poll, more than one third of notebook users (36%) said that they
would be willing to pay more for batteries that are better for the environment;
54% said they would pay more for one that recharged more quickly
(Sonata has 50% faster recharge times); and 51% said
they would pay extra for a battery that came with
a two-year warranty (HP Enviro Series program
notebook batteries with Sonata technology have
three-year warranties). www.hp.com
04 sustainabletimes
AVERY TO PLANT TREES
IN KENYA
Avery has joined forces with the
Green Belt Movement to plant
100,000 new trees in Kenya.
Every time a customer redeems the
voucher code on promotional packs
of Avery Eco-Friendly Laser Addressing
Labels, Recycled Labels and Laser ID
Labels, Avery will plant a tree.
Customers can enter code details on
Avery’s dedicated microsite at
www.nature.avery.eu
The Green Belt Movement was
founded in 1977 by Wangari Maathai,
the first African woman to receive the
Nobelw Peace Prize. Since then, it has
planted more than 40 million trees,
increasing forest coverage, conserving
biodiversity and helping
to provide income and
sustenance to hundreds of
thousands of Kenyan people.
greenbeltmovement.org
0870 903 9500

5. Simple steps to save
energy
As the worsening economy forces
businesses to cut costs, npower
is recommending energy-saving
measures as one of the easiest ways
to reduce expenditure.
Its team of experts recently helped
four businesses cut their energy spend
by £1,200 and reduce CO2 output by
almost 4.9 tonnes by implementing
simple measures that could help any
business save up to 20% on energy bills.
These included reducing the air
conditioning settings in a pub by
2°C; defrosting the fridge freezer and
installing energy efficient lighting at a
car auctioneer’s; and draught proofing
doors and changing light bulbs in a shop.
No premiums for
green IT, please
Lack of knowledge and high prices are
the two biggest obstacles to green
purchasing, according to a global
survey conducted by Cohn & Wolfe
and Strategic Oxygen. The GreenFactor
survey of 12,000 consumers found that
the cost of Green IT was a factor for
45% of respondents. More than half
(57%) said that they did not expect
and were not willing to pay premiums
for green electronics. Just 15% said
they expected and were prepared to
pay higher prices for Green IT. For more
survey results, turn to page 11.
What’s stopping you from being green?
When it comes to being green it
seems that there is always something
or someone that stops us from acting
in a more responsible manner.
According to an ICM Research survey
for the Energy Saving Trust, 63% of us
would be greener if the Government
offered green tax credits; 50% of us
would live a greener lifestyle if we had
more time; and 44% would act more
responsibly if our employers gave us an
incentive to do so, such as loans to buy
energy-efficient products.
Blaming one’s employer is not a
completely groundless excuse, as the
pan-European survey of 6,000 adults
revealed that Britons work the longest
hours in Europe and spend the most
time commuting (more than 5 hours
per week). Almost one in three Britons
said that their job was the main reason
they did not have time to be green and
one in seven (14%) would like their
employer to give them time off to take
necessary carbon reduction measures.
More than a quarter of British survey
respondents (27%) said they would like
the Government to introduce a green
public holiday to help them find time
to take action to reduce their carbon
footprint, compared with a European
average of 12%.
www.energysavingtrust.org.uk
0800 512012
Unveiled at the 2008
Philips Simplicity event
in Moscow, the
Light Blossom
outdoor lighting
concept collects energy
from both the sun and wind. It
is designed to generate enough
electricity to power itself with any
surplus being fed into the grid.
www.greenfactorstudy.com
Guaranteed carbon
capture
To counter the poor reputation
of forestry offsets, carbon offset
company Carbonica guarantees that
its reforestation programmes in
Central America will capture carbon
throughout the term of the offset.
Dr Mikel Susperregi, founder of
Carbonica, said that trees would be
assessed on an annual basis and any
damaged ones replaced. He added:
“Trees release the CO2 that they have
captured during their growth back into
the atmosphere when they die. That
is why it is important to replace them
upon maturity and use the timber
commercially. The CO2 is then safely
locked away in the wood. This way the
forests are efficient sinks of carbon.”
www.carbonica.org 020 7499 9192
www.binfo.co.uk
HPA identifies radiation
risk from light bulbs
People who sit for long periods
next to certain energy-saving
compact fluorescent light bulbs
could be exposed to higher than
recommended ultraviolet radiation
levels, the Health Protection Agency
(HPA) has warned.
The HPA recommends that open
(single envelope) CFLs should not
be used if someone is likely to be
within 1 foot or 30cm of a bare bulb
for more than 1 hour a day. In such
situations, open CFLs should be replaced
by encapsulated (double envelope)
bulbs, which look similar to traditional
domestic light bulbs. Alternatively, the
lamp should be moved at least 30 cm or
1 ft away.
The HPA’s research found that people
within 2 cm of some open flourescent
bulbs were exposed to radiation levels
equivalent to direct sunlight on a
summer’s day.
Panasonic sponsors WWF
Panasonic is becoming a major
sponsor of the WWF as part of its
‘eco ideas’ strategy to improve the
efficiency of products, increase
environmental performance at
manufacturing sites and encourage
people to act more responsibly.
The consumer electronics company
is sponsoring WWF’s International Arctic
Programme, which has been established
to protect this pristine region from
growing threats, ranging from climate
change to illegal fishing and oil and gas
exploration.
As part of the ‘eco ideas’ programme,
Panasonic also plans to launch 20
‘superior green products’ by March
2010 and reduce CO2 emissions from
European manufacturing sites by 10%.
www.panda.org/arctic
www.panasonic.net/eco
greenAgenda…
sustainabletimes 05

6. greenAgenda
By preventing heat loss through poor
insulation or windows, businesses like the
RSA Birmingham ICC can significantly reduce
heating bills.
Don’t neglect tried and
tested CHP
Sustainable power group ENER-G
is warning that tried and trusted
technologies, such as combined
heat and power (CHP), should not
be sidelined in the rush to develop
power from renewables.
Alan Barlow, managing director of
ENER-G Combined Power, points out
that the simultaneous generation of
electricity and useful heat is almost
twice as efficient as conventional
power generation and is a proven
technology.
“CHP reduces greenhouse emissions
drastically by capturing the heat output
that is wasted in conventional power
generation. But unlike renewable
technologies such as wind it doesn’t
benefit from large subsidies and suffers
from ‘Cinderella syndrome’ in which its
value goes largely unrecognised.”
He added: “We need renewable
generation, but in our race to meet
targets we must not forget about
those important technologies that help
consumers cut their carbon output.
CHP electricity is around one third of
the price charged by conventional UK
suppliers and cuts carbon by around
20%, yet out of all the members of the
European Union the UK’s current CHP
capacity is the fourth lowest.”
Official statistics show that every 1
MW of CHP operating in the UK helps
reduce carbon emissions by between
510 and 760 tonnes every year. The
Government’s target is to reach a UK
CHP capacity of 10,000 MW by 2010.
www.energ.co.uk
RSA urges landlords to do more than
the minimum for an EPC
Insurer RSA is urging landlords to do more than the bare
minimum to comply with the Energy Performance of Buildings
Directive. Instead of simply obtaining an Energy Performance
Certificate (EPC), it is advising them to follow the EPC’s
recommendations for improving energy-efficiency. EPCs –
mandatory for all buildings being leased or sold – indicate
how energy efficient a building is on a scale of A to G and
recommend ways to further improve energy efficiency, for
example by resetting building management systems or
replacing air conditioning units or windows. RSA is following
the EPC recommendations for its Manchester office EPC by
purchasing a duct for the heating and ventilation system at a
cost of £15,000. It is estimated that this investment will lead
to an annual savings of £6,000.
www.rsagroup.com
Two’s company
Userful is giving away free software that enables two
people to share a single computer, eliminating the need to
buy a second home PC.
The two-person version of Userful’s Multiplier desktop
virtualisation software enables a single PC to support two users
simultaneously. All the second user has to do is connect an
extra monitor, USB keyboard and mouse.
The full version of the software can create up to 10
independent workstations from a single PC, reducing the
number of computers that need to be purchased and
maintained. It is already used on 30,000 workstations in
schools, libraries, hotels and other businesses worldwide.
http://userful.com/products/free-2-user
Bio-plastics set for wider use in MFPs
Canon U.S.A. and Toray Industries have
developed the first bio-plastic suitable for use
on the exterior parts of MFPs.
Plastics that contain plant-derived components
require less oil and have 20% fewer manufacturingrelated CO2 emissions than wholly petroleumbased plastics, but their use to date has been
limited due to shortcomings in the areas of flame
retardance, impact resistance, heat resistance and
malleability.
Ecodear bio-plastic overcomes one of the main
objections to the wider use of bio-plastics by
meeting the highest levels of flame retardance (5V
classification under the UL 94 flammability testing
program), which is essential for exterior MFP parts.
06 sustainabletimes
In 2009, Canon plans to use 100 tons of the
material, which includes 25% plant-derived
material (by weight).
From 2009, the outer panels of certain Canon MFPs will
be made from bio-plastics
greenBrief
On the slide
The economic crisis is pushing
sustainability down the boardroom
agenda, according to a survey by Echo
Research. Nearly two thirds (63%) of
opinion leaders surveyed said they
viewed it as a low or non-priority,
and almost half (47%) said that
businesses would do less in the current
economic climate. Fewer than one in
three (29%) believe that business is
making a significant contribution to
sustainability.
www.echoresearch.com
Paper recycling on target
The paper and board recycling rate
in Europe reached 64.5% in 2007,
according to The European Recovered
Paper Council (ERPC). This confirms
that the industry is on track to meet
its voluntary target of 66% by 2010.
The total amount of paper collected
and sent to be recycled in paper mills
was 60.1 million tonnes, an increase of
7.6 million tonnes (or +14.5%) since
2004, the base year for the target.
www.paperrecovery.org
Double the money
The Carbon Trust is doubling the size
of grants available under its flagship
Applied Research scheme from £250k
to £500k. Carbon Trust Applied
Research grant funding supports the
development of technologies that
have the potential to reduce UK
carbon emissions. Since 2001, it has
invested £18.5 million in 145 projects
as diverse as fuel cells, combined heat
and power, bioenergy, solar power, low
carbon building technology and wave
energy convertors. Of the 95 projects
completed to date, 70% have filed
patents, secured follow-on funding or
generated commercial sales.
www.carbontrust.co.uk
0800 085 2005
How to save
Businesses can identify where to
make savings using a free online tool
developed by BT Business. Based on
work that BT and Global Action Plan
have undertaken on behalf of corporate
clients, the BT Business Environmental
Self-assessment Tool (BT BEST)
identifies where businesses have
an environmental impact and what
they can do to improve their green
credentials.
www.bt.com/btbest
0870 903 9500

7. packaging
products that
don’t cost the
earth...
At Ambassador and Jiffy, we look
closely on how to combine everything
you expect from our top brand
products with the environmental
awareness our society needs.
Our aim is to provide environmentally friendly protective
packaging through a range of quality and cost effective
solutions. We have a selection of products that are
fully recyclable or contain recycled materials, without
compromising the protection your items require.
Jiffy Green Bubble
Fully recyclable cushioning made using 100%
recycled polyethylene.
Super Lite
The fully recyclable all polythene postal bag that
can be written on and printed, provides a
waterproof product.
Degradable Carrier Bags
Ê
Our brand new range of Degradable Polythene
Carrier Bags are manufactured from recycled
materials and themselves are fully recyclable.
Jiffy Padded Bags
The original eco-mailer has a fully recyclable all
paper construction with up to 65% recycled
content. 100% paper cushioning protection.
Ambassador packaging Ltd, Road One, Winsford Industrial Estate, Winsford, Cheshire CW7 3QB
Tel: 0870 60 99 888 | Fax: 0870 60 99 889 | Web: www.ambassadorpackagingcom
reliable products, reliable people
Jiffy Packaging Company Ltd, Road Four, Winsford Industrial Estate, Winsford, Cheshire CW7 3QR
Tel: 01606 867200 | Fax: 01606 861877 | Web: www.jiffy.co.uk

8. Did you know?
greenAgenda
• Less than 5% of the annual
worldwide volume of mobile
phone handsets shipped come
back through recycling or ethical
disposal programs (source: Mobile
Handset Green Initiatives, ABI
Research www.abiresearch.com)
• 60% of office chairs end up in landfill
at end of life (source: Orangebox)
• It takes 97% less energy to
make aluminium from recovered
material than it does to make it
from bauxite, aluminium’s source
material. Making steel from
recovered material requires 75%
less energy than making it from
iron and ore (source: Okamura)
• Recycling one tonne of steel cans
saves 1.5 tonnes of iron ore, 0.5
tonnes of coal and 40% water usage.
Recycling just seven steel cans saves
enough energy to power a 60-watt
light bulb for 26 hours
(source: SCRIB, the Steel Can
Recycling Information Bureau)
• Lighting is responsible for 19% of
all electricity used. Street lighting
and buildings account for 75%
of lighting-related electricity
consumption. Up to 80% of
lighting systems in buildings are
based on outdated technology
(source: Philips)
• If all the lighting in the world
was switched to energy efficient
solutions, we would save €120
billion worth of electricity and
630 million tonnes of CO2. That
is equivalent to the output of 500
power plants or 1,800 million barrels
of oil each year (source: Philips)
• Almost half of UK households
(47%) still leave the TV on standby
when they go to bed, wasting more
than £80,000 a year in electricity
(source: Energy Saving Trust)
Top Tips for Green IT
To help businesses successfully implement
Green IT policies, Cefyn Grafton from Remploy
e-cycle has compiled the following top tips.
1. “One of the easiest ways to be
greener is simply to use less IT
equipment in the first place”, says
Cefyn. “Sharing equipment, such
as printers and photocopiers, and
hot-desking where possible are two
simple and effective ways of doing
this.”
2. Cefyn recommends purchasing
from responsible manufacturers,
suppliers and distributors to ensure
your IT equipment isn’t already
causing unnecessary damage to the
environment. “Many manufacturers
use lead-free solders, for example,
and do not treat their plastics with
harmful chemicals. It’s also important
to bear in mind where products are
made as inefficient logistics will add
to your carbon footprint.”
3. “Future-proof your IT equipment
by buying wisely and considering
likely technical developments in
your industry.” Bear in mind the
efficiency of newer IT equipment, too
– flat screen monitors, for example,
consume less energy than older CRT
monitors.
4. “Ensure that PCs are not left on
overnight by setting up automatic
shut-down, and implement the
stand-by facility so that computers
that are left on while the user is away
from his or her desk power down
after a few minutes. Add passwordprotection and you also have a great
security measure to stop anyone
using your computer while you go for
lunch or a quick meeting.”
Remploy e-cycle can refurbish computer
equipment for redeployment or sale
5. Maximise the usable life of your
computing equipment: “If you
maintain your equipment to a
good standard, when it’s time for
an upgrade, it can be redeployed
to other parts of your business
that may not have such high-spec
requirements. Remember to ensure
that all sensitive data is removed
beforehand and equipment is
suitably prepared.” E-cycle’s research
suggests that refreshing computers
every three years, and redeploying or
selling on older equipment, is highly
cost-effective. Many companies
choose to donate older equipment
to charities or organisations such as
schools in developing countries.
6. “Once computer equipment has
reached its end of life, ensure it is
recycled via a reputable service,”
advises Cefyn. “Despite legislation,
thousands of computers from
businesses in the UK and Europe are
still finding their way to landfill, are
incinerated or are simply dumped
outside the EU in places like West
Africa. Not only is this dangerous,
it’s also illegal.” If it is not viable
to refurbish computer equipment
for redeployment or sale, Remploy
e-cycle will recycle every single
component.
7. “Finally, use IT-related services and
partners that are themselves ethically
and environmentally-minded. A good
place to start is with companies
registered with the Environment
Agency - such as e-cycle, which
processes all equipment in line with
the environmental standard ISO
14001. As part of Remploy, the UK’s
largest employer of disabled people,
e-cycle also provides employment
for those who face barriers to work,
which can help to fulfil clients’
corporate and social responsibility.”
www.remployecycle.co.uk
• A third of Britons (35 per cent)
would share a bath or shower to save
money on their electricity or gas bill
compared to just eight per cent of
Swedes (source: Energy Saving Trust)
08 sustainabletimes
0870 903 9500

10. advertorial
Increased sustainability
with flexible working
Mark Ivens, Senior Marketing Manager, Samsung Networks
Division, looks at the theory of flexible working and its
implications within the manufacturing space.
Launched April 2007 was the Work and
Families Act requiring organizations
to provide flexible working options to
anyone with a ‘caring responsibility’.
Those with young families or first
time mums look at flexible working as a
means for flexible hours or days. However,
directors, management and staff within
a company can see it as a solution to
staying connected with customers and
colleagues; accessing voice and data
communications on the move.
By allowing employees to work
from home or on location, the
Samsung solution reduces the need
for employees to return to the office,
therefore reducing the carbon footprint
needed to make this so.
Flexibility and mobility mean one
thing – keeping in touch while on the
move.
Findings from the Human Resources
Flexible Working Survey 2007 found
that 94 per cent of respondents felt
that flexible working was relevant
to their business, with the exception
of the manufacturing industry. As
manufacturing involves so much
hands-on work, many firms believe that
flexible working is not a viable option.
However, this is not the case, by
breaking down the benefits of flexible
working to both the company, the
customer and the individual shows
how flexible working can add to an
organisation.
Flexible working can mean flexible
locations; workers are available within
warehouse, factory and production
sites etc rather than being confined
to a single area of operations (i.e. the
office). As people in manufacturing are
constantly on the move or in different
locations, it makes it particularly
important for them to be contactable,
at any time and place. This not only
makes them much more efficient,
but also gives a good impression to
10 sustainabletimes
customers; they don’t need to
leave messages to call back.
Technology is also
an issue; Purchases
for mobile technology
previously took place on an
individual or departmental level, but is
now a company-wide decision. Vendors
are responding to this by offering
bundles and plans for flexible solutions
at lower costs, taking the headache out
of the buying process.
Major vendors in the market
are all contributing to introduce IP
technologies that give the ability to
take and make calls from any location
on the premises using an office
extension number as if the user is
sat at their desk. In addition to this
DECT telephone handsets can be
integrated within the general
phone system, allowing users to
be on an extension of the PBX.
Another option is OfficeServ
Connect which enables businesses
integrate mobile phones or other
phones as extensions to the office
system. Allowing calls to be routed
from desk extensions to mobile phones
and reduces overall costs.
Wifi allows cordless phones and
PC’s to be on the main network and
be used anywhere around the host
and Computer Telephony Integration
allows a worker to be on the network
anywhere and still make and receive
calls as if they were made at the desk
by utilising a PC soft phone, all allowing
companies to work more ‘flexibly’.
Benefits to the customer include
Continuous connection. This
enables the company to be more
effective, as well as helping them
win more new business, by being
constantly reachable and not
dropping any potential leads.
Flexible working leads to an edge
over the competition; by setting up an
IP extension and re-programming the
phone system, business can be
conducted from global
offices whose day is
just beginning. When
one location shuts down
for the night, the other is just
logging on to take-over, providing
a 24-hour service for customers.
There is no doubt that the right
flexible solutions improve both
accessibility and communication
and consequently are worth the
investment. Samsung believes that
with the right offerings, services and
training, manufacturers will be able
to reap the business benefits possible
through a truly flexible workforce.
An Example of Samsung’s successes
within this area comes from
the company Bartholdi,
who have been based at
the same industrial park
near Heathrow for a number of
years, but recently expanded to new
offices opposite. Samsung installed
a 100mb laser link to create an IP
network between the sites.
Maurice Stephenson, IT Manager,
Bartholdi, commented: “The laser link
is great. We have a complete network
between the sites and are able to
communicate in the same way we
would if we were all in one office.
We felt confident in buying the
Samsung name.”
www.samsung.co.uk
Samsung’s environmental credentials
Samsung’s commitment to increasing sustainability is outlined within their first
Environmental Guidelines, adopted in 1992. Their mission statement to this
day, over 15 years later, is to focus on minimizing environmental impacts
both in Samsung factories and as the outcome of their products life cycles,
from the design phase through to manufacturing, use and end of life.
This Environmental guideline notes that Samsung ‘plays a leading role in creating a
sustainable society by recognizing and implementing the environment, safety and health as crucial
factors in all their business endeavors’; one of these important sustainable movements is the continual research into
products which facilitate ‘flexible working’.
Samsung also scored highly on the recent Greenpeace spectrum of the world’s major technology manufacturers
and the Samsung solution has been deployed by the Carbon Neutral Company.
0870 903 9500

11. What’s in a label?
Manufacturers’ green certification schemes have a role to
play, but should be treated with caution
It is a measure both of the importance
of Green IT and the inadequacy of
third party accreditation schemes
that Fujitsu Siemens Computers has
launched a new Green IT labelling
scheme for its notebooks, PCs and
servers.
The new Green Plug label will
be applied to products that meet
environmental targets relating to
energy consumption, material use and
recycling. In order to qualify for the
label, notebooks, PCs, workstations, thin
clients, servers and storage products
must meet certain mandatory criteria.
Those that do will be awarded one, two
or three stars depending on how many
additional targets they meet.
Green Plug is far from being the
only green labelling scheme set up by a
manufacturer. Philips, too, has introduced
a green label to help customers choose
the most environmentally responsible
products in its portfolio (see caption).
The benefit of such labelling
programmes is that they make it
easy for customers to identify a
manufacturer’s greenest products
without having to do the research
themselves. After all, how many
companies have the time, resources or
influence to extract from manufacturers
all the information needed to make an
informed decision about a product’s
environmental impact throughout its
lifecycle?
According to a survey of 10,000
adults conducted by Strategic Oxygen
and Cohn & Wolfe in September and
October 2008, the public wants to
receive more information about a
product’s energy consumption and
production methods. The GreenFactor
study found that the Number One
obstacle to green purchasing was ‘lack of
awareness’ (cited by 53%), just ahead of
price (45%).
Manufacturer certification schemes
are likely to be welcomed by consumers
who appear to value the publicity
material of suppliers above independent
sources – the GreenFactor survey
found that information on a product’s
www.binfo.co.uk
packaging (33%) and a brand’s website
(32%) was given more weight by
consumers than ‘independent brand
comments online’ (28%) and input by
‘friends and peers’ (13%).
But is it wise to rely on green
labels that may have a very low bar
for qualification, be highly selective
in the criteria chosen for qualification
and act as a fig leaf for a multitude of
environmental sins?
One of the most revealing parts of
the GreenFactor report is a comparison
between consumers’ perceptions
of green leaders and Greenpeace’s
facts-based ranking of 18 leading
manufacturers of personal computers,
mobile phones, TVs and games consoles.
Cross-tabulating GreenFactor’s
findings with The Greenpeace Guide
to Greener Electronics shows that the
brands consumers perceive to be green
may not have the best environmental
practices after all, whereas others
that score highly in Greenpeace’s
ranking, like Samsung and Nokia, are
not considered to be green leaders by
consumers.
This underlines the benefit to
manufacturers of burnishing their green
credentials though a variety of means
including labelling schemes, whilst
highlighting the need for independent
assessments like those provided by
Greenpeace.
The Greenpeace Guide to Greener
Electronics is influential (it has been
given credit for the recent greening
of Apple) because it challenges the
posturing of consumer electronics
manufacturers in relation to energy use,
toxics elimination and recycling.
The 10th edition of the Guide
released in November 2008 praises
manufacturers for making their
products more energy-efficient but
criticises Motorola, Microsoft, Dell,
Apple, Lenovo, Samsung, Nintendo
and LG Electronics for having no plans
to cut absolute emissions from their
own operations and for not supporting
the targets and timelines needed to
avoid catastrophic climate change.
Fujitsu Siemens
Computers’ Green
Plug label
Philips has developed
the Philips Green Logo
to identify products with
a smaller environmental
impact like the Magic5
ECO fax from Sagem
Communications
In this respect, The Greenpeace
Guide to Greener Electronics is different
from narrow product certification
schemes, such as Energy Star and
EPEAT (for PCs and notebooks) that
help identify the most environmentally
responsible products but don’t take
account of a manufacturer’s overall
environmental record.
Independent eco-labelling
schemes are another useful source
of information. Environmental
Resources Management Ltd recently
assessed different schemes for the UK
Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra) and classified four
as ‘Class 1’ schemes: Nordic Swan, EU
Flower, New Zealand’s Environmental
Choice and Germany’s Blue Angel.
Products that carry these labels are
likely to have a smaller environmental
footprint than ones that don’t, but
because the schemes are regional,
voluntary (opt-in) and have limited
scope, they, too, have weaknesses.
Manufacturer and independent
certification schemes have an important
role to play in helping business people
and consumers make informed
purchasing decisions. But they are
no guarantee that the company that
has made them is a ‘green leader’ and
committed to taking the actions
needed to minimise the effects of
climate change.
www.greenpeace.org/electronics/
companyrank
www.greenfactorstudy.com
www.fujitsu-siemens.com/greenlabel
sustainabletimes 11

12. The National Association of Paper
Merchants (NAPM) is fighting back
against the paper industry’s critics.
James Goulding reports
In Defence
of Paper
Now is not a good time to be in the
paper industry. Structural problems
within the industry itself have
been exacerbated by bad PR and
growing interest in, and use of, digital
alternatives to paper.
The paper industry has been blamed
for a host of environmental disasters
from the destruction
of the rainforests to pollution
and excessive use of energy
(visit www.shrinkpaper.org to
read the full charge sheet).
Paper reduction strategies
have become a popular way for
organisations to reduce their
carbon footprint – the French
Government has a target to
reduce paper consumption by
50% by 2012 – and they are
even being used by printer
companies to sell managed
print services (see page 22).
The ease with which it is now
possible to reduce paper consumption
in offices, from the use of electronic
workflows to two-sided printing (now
a standard feature on almost all office
printers), had already started to affect
demand for paper even before the
banking crisis and economic downturn
impacted marketing budgets.
According to the National
Association of Paper Merchants (NAPM),
there was a 6.5% reduction in fine and
graphic arts paper tonnage between
2004-2007, and a 4.3% year-on-year
reduction in the volume of sheets from
August 07-August 08.
Faced with declining demand for
its products and continued criticism
of the paper industry, the NAPM has
started a new campaign to counter
what it sees as misinformation spread
12 sustainabletimes
by environmentalists. Targeting
Government organisations and media
buyers, the Two Sides campaign will use
PR, a website and booklets to put the
paper industry’s side of the story.
NAPM president Alistair Gough
told Sustainable Times that the time
had come to fight back against the
industry’s critics.
“For many years, the NAPM has
watched the industry take negative
comments about its impact on the
environment. Clearly environmental
responsibility has gained more
prominence in the last two or three
years and in that period the level of
misinformation has increased,” he said.
“We are instigating the campaign
to redress the balance and facilitate a
debate on what steps environmentally
responsible management should take in
the future, in terms of the manufacture,
design, use, disposal and recovery of
paper.”
The NAPM has already set up a
website – www.twosides.info – to dispel
six myths relating to the production of
paper viz. that making paper destroys
forests; that paper
is bad for the
environment; that
it consumes a vast
amount of energy;
that paper has a high
carbon footprint;
that recycled paper
is always better for
the environment than
virgin paper; and that
paper contributes significantly to landfill.
Gough told Sustainable Times that
Two Sides was not an attempt to
whitewash the paper industry but to
redress the balance and highlight the
paper industry’s real achievements in
environmental responsibility.
“It’s easy to make superficial
assumptions,” Gough said. “People
know that paper comes from trees
and that rainforests are being cut
down and therefore assume that paper
comes from rainforests. But we know
that fuel and farming are the main
reasons for the loss of rainforest. We
aren’t denying that the paper industry
has issues regarding its environmental
responsibility. We are simply saying let’s
redress the balance.”
He points out that the paper
industry has the potential to be
truly sustainable: paper is a natural,
renewable and reusable resource and
manufacturers have made, and continue
to make, significant investments to
eliminate harmful chemicals from the
production process and to minimise
waste and power consumption (see
box).
This view is supported by
Jonathan Porritt, chairman of the
UK Sustainability Development
Commission, who is quoted on Two
Sides as saying: “There aren’t many
industries around that can aspire to
becoming genuinely sustainable. The
paper industry, however, is one of them:
it is inherently sustainable.”
www.twosides.info
M-real goes the extra mile for a lower carbon footprint
M-real’s 100% recycled Evolve paper provides an example of how investment
in modern technology can substantially reduce a paper’s carbon footprint.
The 100% recycled paper used to be made at the New Thames Mill in Kent using
waste paper that was collected from businesses in the South-East and converted to
pulp in a neighbouring recycled fibre plant (RCF).
At the end of 2008, M-real moved production of the paper to the Alizay Mill in
Northern France. Pulp from the RCF plant in Kent is transported by road to Alizay
where the paper is produced; the reels are then transported back to the UK for
conversion and packaging into reams.
With the extra transport involved you might think that the paper’s carbon
footprint would have increased. In fact, because the integrated pulp and paper mill
at Alizay is predominantly powered by renewable biomass, including black licquor,
a by-product of the paper-making process, Evolve’s carbon footprint is now 66%
lower than when it was produced at the gaspowered New Thames Mill.
In the medium to long-term,
M-real expects total product miles
to fall, as Alizay Mill is closer to
emerging European markets for
recycled paper.
www.m-real.com
0870 903 9500

13. Green Calculators
With over 40 years of calculator innovation Canon this year launched an
innovative range of environmentally friendly “Green” calculators made
from recycled material.
As the first office equipment manufacturer to implement a cartridge
recycling program in 1990, Canon has long been committed to reducing
its environmental impact. The launch of this calculator range was another
small step towards a truly sustainable manufacturing programme.
The casings for the range are made from 100% recycled Canon Copier
components whilst recycled paper is used for the packaging and
instruction manuals for the range.
Consumers can choose from a wide range of pocket, desktop and printing
calculators and selected models are solar powered, further increasing the
products’ energy efficiency.
Every calculator is manufactured to Canon’s usual high standards and
comes with a 3-year warranty.
For further information please contact Canon on 01737 220 260
or visit www.canon.co.uk

14. M
le
100%
50%
c
cy
led Content
RECYCLED CHAIRS
*for parts weighing
more than 50g
ab
M
le
Recyc
l
98%
51%
c
cy
led Content
on
led C tent
Haworth Zody_System 89
Haworth’s Zody_System 89 task chair has been
awarded MBDC Cradle to Cradle Gold certification.
It is free of PVC, chrome and chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) and all elements are clearly marked to
aid recycling. The chair is made in China, Germany and
the United States for global distribution. Haworth has
purchased renewable energy credits equal to the
amount of electricity used to assemble the chairs
in Asia Pacific and North America.
www.haworthuk.com
*by weight
ab
M
le
HÅG Sideways
eM
bl
Winner of a Business Info Editor’s
Choice award when it was launched
in the Spring, the HÅG Sideways
chair is designed for today’s more
informal, collaborative
meetings. The wide
seat cushion has a
waterfall edge on three
sides so you can sit at
any angle on an arc
from 0 to 180 degrees
with no discomfort.
Recyc
la
Recycled content
is 52% on the
Recyc
la
skidbase version
98%
71%
(the 9730) and 71%
on the four star base
98%
71%
model (the 9742).
www.hag.no/uk
eM
bl
aterial R
ec
yc
aterial R
ec
yc
on
led C tent
on
led C tent
yc
Conten
led
t
RH Ambio
aterial R
ec
67%
23%
RH Chairs has implemented
numerous initiatives to reduce the
environmental impact of its activities.
In the case of the Ambio chair, this
is demonstrated not just by the
high percentage of recyclable
material, but also by the use
of natural alternatives to chemically
produced foam, notably pig and horse
hair. The 33% of material that
can’t be recycled is designed to
be burnt and converted into
energy at end of life.
www.rhchairs.co.uk
a
eM
bl
aterial* R
e
99%
44%
yc
cyc
l
aterial R
ec
Steelcase characterises Think as a chair with
a brain and a conscience – a brain because
it automatically adopts the healthiest/
most comfortable position at all times
and a conscience because it is designed
according to Steelcase’s Life Cycle
Assessment to minimise its
environmental impact.
It has a recycled content
of 44%; contains no
PVC, chrome, mercury
or lead; uses CFC and
HCFC-free foam; and is 99%
recyclable. To encourage recycling the
chair can be completely disassembled
in just 5 minutes.
www.steelcase.co.uk
Recyc
l
Dauphin TakeOver
TakeOver is another chair that
can be taken apart in less than
5 minutes for easier recycling.
To extend its useful life, cushions
and upholstery can be
replaced at any time.
www.dauphin.de
Re
Steelcase Think
14 sustainabletimes
aterial* R
e
10
TOP
Recyc
l ab
0870 903 9500

15. Recyc
l
ab
M
le
aterial R
ec
100%
61%
yc
Conten
led
t
Connection IS Chair
ab
96%
54%
M
le
Conten
led
t
aterial R
ec
yc
Recyc
l
ab
M
le
95%
42%
aterial R
ec
The award-winning Baron chair uses recycled aluminium and
resins. Making aluminium from recycled materials consumes
97% less energy than creating virgin material from bauxite.
The Japanese manufacturer’s stylish Contessa chair has a
similar footprint (52% recycled and 95% recyclable).
www.okamura.co.jp
yc
Conten
led
t
Okamura Baron
yc
ab
97%
53%
Recyc
l
aterial R
ec
Recyc
l
Lily is the new task chair from carbon
neutral company BOSS Design. All
of Lily’s major parts can be quickly
disassembled so that components can
quickly and easily be divided into their
relevant material category for recycling.
www.boss-design.co.uk
M
le
IS was developed by Roger Webb
Associates and the Connection design
team with sustainability in mind.
Upholstery is woven as a sack so there
are no offcuts, and there is no glue on
foam and fabrics so that they can easily
be separated and re-used or recycled.
www.is-connection.uk.com
BOSS Design Lily
Conten
led
t
Herman Miller Embody
Recyc
l
ab
M
le
aterial R
ec
92%
64%
Embody, the new flagship office
chair from Herman Miller, is
designed using the McDonough
Braungart Cradle to Cradle Design Protocol. Like the
Mirra chair – the first Herman Miller chair based on this
protocol – Embody is 42% recycled and 95% recyclable.
www.hermanmiller.com
yc
Conten
led
t
Orangebox G68
In addition to using a high percentage of recycled
materials, Orangebox has sought to minimise the
carbon footprint of its G68 task chair by making it
available with optional Climate Care carbon offsets.
www.orangebox.com
www.binfo.co.uk
sustainabletimes 15

16. Once again,
we’ like to tell you
d
what we don’t do.
Source: www.ethical-company-organisation.org
We don’t conduct experimentation on animals. We don’t
develop weaponry. We don’t make things that produce
dangerous emissions. We don’t support political parties.
And we don’t come second in any of the Ethical Company
Organisation’s recent results for each of our product categories.
For the second year running, we’ve come first.
If you’d like to discover more things that we don’t do visit
www.brothergreen.co.uk or call 0845 6060 626
16 sustainabletimes
0870 903 9500

17. cover story
Green from
the ground up
Brother was committed to
improving its environmental
performance long before being
‘green’ became fashionable in
business technology.
The company’s commitment
can be seen throughout its product
portfolio and all Brother products are
engineered to have a low impact on the
environment from their creation to the
end of their life.
Brother has the rigorous
ISO 14001:2004 standard for
environmental management
systems and is a leader in its field for
environmental and social responsibility.
The company has also achieved Energy
Star and Blue Angel accreditations on
many new products for minimising
negative environmental impact.
Brother consumables have a low
environmental impact. By having
individual cartridges for colour ink,
users get full use out of every colour.
The same rules apply with laser
technology - choosing equipment with
separate drum and toner reduces the
wastage that all-in-one supplies are
known for.
When cartridges come to the end
of their lifecycle, Brother ensures that
they can be recycled effectively and
efficiently at its state-of-the-art plant
in Ruabon in Wales. The plant produces
zero waste, and is able to recycle 98%
of the disposed product’s material.
Mike Dinsdale,
Communications
Director, Brother
The use of individually
replaceable colour
cartridges keeps waste
to a minimum
Brother’s ReNew recycling
scheme has doubled the return rate
of its toner cartridges over the last
two years. The scheme’s success is
largely attributable to the inclusion of
freepost labels in cartridge boxes and
providing downloadable return labels
on Brother’s website. This enables end
users to return old cartridges quickly
and for free. Brother also provides
its larger customers that have higher
volume printing requirements with
bespoke cartridge recycling boxes and
free returns. It’s a simple scheme but
minimising time spent for the end user
has brought about impressive uptake.
To ensure that end users’
consumables have the least possible
environmental impact, it’s really
important to buy originals. With
Brother consumables, the end user is
getting the best possible quality print
results from a company with a sound
environmental policy that ensures
consumables are fully recycled.
Brother came out on top of the
2008 edition of the Good Shopping
Guide, published by the Ethical
Company Organisation - further
cementing its reputation for green
technology. The Good Shopping Guide,
which looks at the environmental
and ethical credentials of technology
suppliers to help businesses make
a more informed purchase, scored
Brother at 100 out of a possible
100 in the report’s ethical company
index. This is measured against ten
key markers including human rights,
political donations and affiliations to
the nuclear industry. The company
continues to be at the cutting edge
* Brother survey of UK businesses
conducted in association with YouGov.
www.binfo.co.uk
of green initiatives and understands
the fact that a manufacturer’s
environmental credentials can have a
significant bearing on the consumer’s
decision to purchase.
This was the second consecutive
year that Brother was given
the accolade. Mike Dinsdale,
communications director at
Brother said: “Our commitment
to sustainability is deep rooted in
Brother’s corporate philosophy.
From the earliest stages of product
development through to the delivery
of our technology to end users, we
continually invest in the environmental
performance of our business.”
Brother is championing better use
of printers. The results of a recent
study* showed that offices could save
the equivalent of a transatlantic flight’s
worth of carbon emissions every year
if employers were to introduce more
efficient use of printers.
It found that only 11 per cent
of businesses have a clear printing
policy and recommends printing on
both sides of the paper to slash paper
consumption - many Brother office
printers have duplex capability and
it’s an easy way to reduce costs. The
study also showed that more than
four tonnes of CO2 is emitted in the
production of a year’s worth of paper
for the average office. This could be
slashed by up to 50 per cent if people
had proper training on paper usage and
printing efficiently.
Brother’s enthusiasm for having the
environment at the core of its outlook
will continue moving forward. This will
ensure that all processes, from product
development to distribution, are as
green as they possibly can be.
For more information on Brother’s
environmental practices, visit
www.brothergreen.co.uk
sustainabletimes 17

18. advertorial
Videoconferencing:
the environment’s new best friend
As the cost and environmental impact of travel increases, many
organisations are turning to videoconferencing as an alternative
to the traditional face-to-face meeting.
The Videoconferencing solution
Videoconferencing connects people
at different sites together using video
and audio communication, enabling a
productive meeting without the need
for travel. All participants can see and
hear each other as if they were in the
same room. Furthermore, they can
also share key business information,
such as documents, presentations,
whiteboard annotations and even
video streams from an external
network camera.
Whatever your line of
business, a videoconference allows
you to do almost everything you
could do in a face-to-face meeting except maybe shake hands! Plus, you
save on the cost, inconvenience and
environmental impact of all
that travel.
What’s more, videoconferencing
has recently taken massive strides
forward in terms of its quality and
reliability. With the Internet changing
the way all of us work, there is
now huge bandwidth availability to
Sony 1080i HD PCS-XG80
videoconferencing system
For more
information on
all Sony’s video
conferencing
products
simply visit
www.sonybiz.net/vc
support high-quality video, voice and
data transfer. This means you can hold
productive videoconferences without
the fear of broken links, frozen screens
and content that is out of sync.
Sony offers three different types of
videoconferencing solution, catering
for the specific needs of different user
groups - each of which offers
industry-leading
features and
technologies:
Desktop
videoconferencing
Sony’s PCS-TL33P desktop
system allows you to see and speak to
colleagues and customers anywhere
in the world, right from your desk.
As a replacement for your normal PC
monitor, it takes up minimal desktop
space and offers a high contrast ratio
and excellent WXGA resolution. It’s also
highly versatile, with multiple display
modes such as full-screen, picture-inpicture, picture-and picture, split-screen
and three-window. While KIOSK mode
turns it into a convenient remoteconsulting or distance-learning device.
Get closer with 1080i HD high quality
affordable videoconferencing
The new Sony 1080i HD PCS-XG80
videoconferencing system delivers
four times the detail of standard
definition. See every glance between
your customers, view pin sharp data
from colleagues and accurate images
from partners. Enjoy natural meetings
as if everyone were in the same room
together.
Another world-first from Sony…
Dual screen functionality enables you
to send two separate streams of live
HD information in parallel, creating
a live camera view at the same
time as sharing live data from
your laptop with astounding
clarity. Performance speeds up to
1080i HD video at 60 frames per
second, crisp stereo
audio and unique
Sony BrightFace
technology all
combine to create
high quality, affordable
videoconferencing like
you’ve never experienced before.
3D Telepresence
Sony has recently introduced a
range of unique 3D TelePresence
solutions - based on its PCS-XG80
HD videoconferencing system - that
offer real eye-to-eye contact and 3D
projection of the remote site, so you
really do feel like you are meeting in
person.
The PCS-XG80 recently won the
prestigious Frost & Sullivan Innovation
Award in April 08.
The Bigger Picture
Consequences for our planet
Green issues are always high on
the business agenda these days,
with multiple pressures to reduce
your carbon footprint. Cutting
back on business travel would help
dramatically.
And modern videoconferencing
18 sustainabletimes
solutions now make this possible –
without impacting productivity.
Smaller footprint
A single videoconference could replace
the need for multiple phone calls,
e-mails and faxes or – worse still –
using a courier, which has further
environmental impact.
Certain videoconferencing displays
from Sony can help reduce the amount
of power your business consumes,
thanks to special design characteristics
such as low standby. As well as being
good for reducing your energy bills
and operational costs, this is also good
for your environmental profile and
shrinking your carbon footprint.
0870 903 9500

19. COMMENT
Enlightened Management
Mike Lear of RS Components argues that businesses
should consider the total lifecycle costs of lighting
technologies when specifying office lighting schemes
Today’s wide choice of office
lighting options can be bewildering
to the uninitiated. Faced with a
choice of halogen, tungsten, metal
halide, LED, crown reflectors,
uplighters, downlighters, gullwings,
fluorescents, sensor controls,
daylight controls and even the
sun itself, many buyers take the
easy route and opt for a standard
specification. Four hundred lux levels
throughout an office will provide
a good basic level of light at low
cost, but taking this approach may
be counter-productive in a number
of ways, not least in terms of its
environmental impact.
has already issued guidance for new
and refurbished schools that goes
beyond the regulations. Office lighting
(lamp, luminaire and control gear) will
determine results so it is worthwhile
getting professional advice for
individual schemes.
A good first port of call for
extended guidance is CIBSE, although
it is also wise to consider relevant
Standards such as EN15193-1 Energy
performance of buildings - Energy
requirements for lighting - Part 1:
Lighting energy estimation; or EN
15251: Indoor environmental criteria
for design and calculation of energy
performance of buildings.
The problem can be systemic.
Often, decisions about lighting design
are left too late in the design process
so that designers are forced to accept
what the diminishing budget allows
rather than what’s right for the space
or the environment. Cost is often
the most significant factor, which
explains the enduring popularity of the
fluorescent tube.
One of the most important
developments in this area in recent
years is the much publicised 2006
Building Regulations, which set certain
duties and standards for energy
efficiency. However, there is scope to
develop schemes that easily exceed
these requirements, and the DFES
When it comes to making decisions
about lighting, the good news is
that a well designed and managed
lighting scheme will not only be good
for the environment but also for an
organisation’s balance sheet. Simple
decisions about light fittings and
building controls can have an enormous
impact. For example, by specifying
eco-tubes instead of standard
fluorescent tubes, you can expect
to save around 10% of your energy
costs. Reflex eco-tubes direct more
light downwards to give around 50%
more useful light per tube, saving both
installation and running costs.
Similarly, never assume that all
areas within an office require the same
www.binfo.co.uk
specification. The provision of natural
light should influence decisions, but
so, too, will the type of work being
performed. Many modern offices
have different areas for computer
work, meetings, break-out space and
relaxation, all of which will require
different types and levels of light.
Intelligent decisions taken on this basis
can have a significant bearing on energy
costs.
The management of light fittings
is equally important. At the most
basic level, we should all use as much
natural light as possible and remember
to turn lights off when they’re not
Different areas of the
needed. Certain products do this for
office benefit from
us: motion sensors turn off lights
different types of
lighting
in unoccupied areas and daylight
Left: United Utilities’ new compensation controllers can vary light
offices at Lingley Mere
levels automatically depending on the
in Cheshire, designed by
availability of daylight in different parts
Claremont Group.
of the office.
Right: Kaupthing Bank
Cost, cleaning, maintenance and
offices in the City,
designed by Modus Group asset management are other big factors.
RS Components is
Europe’s leading industrial
distributor. It provides a
single source of supply
for parts as diverse as
power tools, process
control equipment,
transistors, lighting
equipment, plumbing
supplies and protective
clothing, via a choice of
purchasing channels. The
RS range includes 135,000
products from over 1300
suppliers, with a further
100,000 electronic
& electromechanical
products available online.
www.rswww.com
You should also look at issues such as
whole life costing and performance, as
lamp performance can deteriorate over
time, and take care that specifications
are not so complex that you need to
stock 35 types of lamp.
There is a strong business case to
be made for effective lighting schemes.
Enlightened management will look
at the financial and environmental
cost of different lighting choices
throughout their lifecycle and not just
at installation.
General guidance on lighting in
a number of types of buildings is
available from the Society of Light
and Lighting, a part of CIBSE.
www.cibse.org/
sustainabletimes 19

20. Colin Crooks, CEO and founder of Green-Works
(www.green-works.co.uk), explains the different routes unwanted office
furniture can take when disposed of in an environmentally sensitive way.
A desk reincarnated
Furniture removal
Green-works
GREENinitiative
award
Sustainable TIMES
WINTER 08/09
20 sustainabletimes
The sorting process
Redistributed in the UK
From eco office stationery to
washroom solutions, companies now
have the opportunity to turn every
aspect of their business green. One
area that is often overlooked is the
disposal of unwanted office furniture.
Many businesses fail to realise that
their furniture can be disposed of
responsibly, as there are very few
companies that offer a comprehensive
and transparent service that ensures
furniture is genuinely diverted from
landfill and dealt with sensitively from
start to finish. There are a number
of routes that redundant items may
follow so it is important for companies
to understand what happens to their
furniture once the removals van
drives away.
The main route for redundant furniture
is still to landfill. However, there are a
number of furniture recycling services
that aim to stop this happening. The
services vary considerably but each will
look to sort and group items before
they can proceed to the next stage.
At Green-Works, this initial ‘triage’
stage is carried out at a warehouse and
determines where the furniture will end
up. A contractor that takes furniture to
a warehouse has more time to grade
it and put items to good use. It also
reduces the time spent on site and
reduces the noise and disturbance to
a client’s office. In Green-Works’ case,
the warehouse provides an opportunity
to employ people from marginalised or
disadvantaged backgrounds, helping to
make a difference to local communities.
In some cases, sorting furniture on-site
is practical but in all cases an effective
distribution network is necessary
to ensure that furniture finds a
suitable home.
It is important to choose your recycling
contractor carefully if your company’s
unwanted items are to gain a useful
second life. Green-Works actively
looks to redistribute furniture and
equipment to businesses in the third
sector, such as charities, schools and
not-for-profit organisations. These
types of organisation cannot afford
new furniture and in many cases even
second hand furniture is out of reach,
so selective procurement can give your
redundant items a much wider impact.
By selling directly from the warehouse,
Green-Works is in total control of
the process and can offer a complete
record of all organisations that have
benefited from the low-cost furniture
it provides.
0870 903 9500

21. Green-Works is an environmental charity and social enterprise
that manages and recycles office furniture. More information
about furniture removal or provision can be found by calling
0845 2302 231 or by visiting www.green-works.co.uk.
Making a difference overseas
Lengthening the lifecycle
Another aspect of Green-Works’ ethical
approach is its donation of furniture
to worthwhile projects in Africa, which
is helping to re-build communities
in some of the poorest countries in
the world. Third world countries are
desperately in need of support in terms
of basic equipment and facilities for
their schools, hospitals and other public
buildings. Something as simple as your
redundant office furniture can have a
huge impact in helping to reconstruct
a war torn community or improve a
child’s education.
If an item of furniture cannot be
redistributed to a new home, the next
best option for the environment is for
it to be remanufactured into something
new. Some companies remodel old
furniture to fit a new space or demand.
However, a lot of furniture is not
capable of such remodelling. GreenWorks has embarked on a programme
of remanufacturing old furniture into
something new, so that it can make use
of even these items. At Green-Works,
pieces suitable for remanufacture
get sent to the in-house joinery
where an enthusiastic team will plan
out how they can be reused. Often
the best items of furniture for the
remanufacturing process are large
old-fashioned desks, for which it is hard
to find new homes. Any items that
cannot be reused or remanufactured
will need to be recycled. Whilst
recycling is a viable and successful
route for unwanted or disposed of
items, reusing or remanufacturing uses
far less energy and should therefore be
pursued wherever possible. For GreenWorks, landfill is simply not an option.
www.binfo.co.uk
A sustainable solution to a
national problem
Depending on whom you engage with,
your redundant equipment could take
any number of paths once it has been
removed. Many businesses are now
looking to address multiple issues
simultaneously. Redirecting unwanted
furniture away from landfill and to a
good cause helps the environment and
boosts a company’s CSR. Not many
companies offer a fully comprehensive
furniture removal and recycling service,
but Green-Works has many years’
experience in dealing with a job from
start to finish. It operates ethically
and honestly and because it is a social
enterprise, businesses know they are in
good company.
sustainabletimes 21

22. Sustainable Times visited
Lexmark’s new Paris offices
to see what it is doing
to reduce the cost and
environmental impact of
printing in its own offices
The combination of a global recession
and growing environmental awareness
means that there has never been a
better time to gain control of print costs
that Gartner estimates could amount
to as much as 1-3% of an enterprise’s
turnover. According to Lexmark, this
works out at about £300 to £1,000 per
employee, depending on the nature of
the business.
Print costs include the cost of the
devices themselves, toner cartridges,
Paper Cuts
Lexmark’s new Print Less, Save More
strategy holds out the promise
of cost savings of up to 40%
and a lower carbon footprint for
organisations that implement a
managed print service from Lexmark
Global Services or one of its resellers.
In order to demonstrate the
benefits of managing and controlling
office printing, the printer company
is applying its four-step programme
in its own offices, including those
of Lexmark UK in Marlow, Bucks and
Lexmark France in Suresnes, Paris.
22 sustainabletimes
paper and energy consumption, plus
hard-to-measure values, such as the cost
of support and lost productivity caused
by inefficient printing practices and
machine downtime.
In addition to the financial cost of
office printing, there is an environmental
one. Unlike furniture, which has a
negligible impact on the environment
between manufacture/distribution/
installation and disposal at end of life,
printers are at their most damaging
during the usage phase, largely through
their use of paper.
“If you look at the lifecycle of a
printer and measure its impact on the
environment, 94% of that impact is due
to paper, toner cartridges and energy
use,” explained Lexmark France general
manager Renaud Deschamps.
According to Lexmark, the lion’s
share of this figure – 80% – is accounted
for by paper alone. This explains
why paper reduction strategies are
such a key component of its fourstep MPS proposition, encompassing
printer rationalisation; unified device
management; the implementation
of more efficient printing practices
to reduce paper consumption (e.g.
two-sided printing); and streamlined
document workflows.
Print Less, Save More
To show how its Print Less, Save More
programme can be implemented in
even small organisations, Lexmark took
Sustainable Times on a tour of its new
offices in Suresnes, Paris.
Located on five floors of a modern
but unremarkable building in a quiet
street off a main thoroughfare beside the
Seine, the offices include meeting rooms,
a showroom of Lexmark products and
office space for 120 workers.
On the day of Sustainable Times’ visit,
the offices were quiet, neat, spacious and
remarkably empty. Perhaps because of
this – or as a result of Lexmark’s waste
reduction strategies – there was almost
no paper to be seen, not even in the
output trays of workgroup printers
and MFPs.
It was not always like this. Lexmark
France’s old offices in La Defense, Paris
were fairly paper-intensive. Each of
the four floors had 17 personal and
workgroup printers for just 30 people.
In total, there were 67 print devices
(one for every two employees),
producing 508,000 pages per annum.
When Lexmark moved to its new
offices it had three choices: to replicate
the existing printer infrastructure; to
replace the 17 devices on each floor
with one high volume A3 MFP; or to
implement a balanced deployment of
four devices per floor.
It chose the third option on the basis
that the second would have required
workers to walk too far to collect prints,
making the re-introduction of personal
printers more likely. Lexmark believes
that 6 or 7 metres is the furthest you
can ask people to go to pick up a print
without adversely affecting morale and
productivity.
Another benefit of having more
than one device per floor is that there
continued on page 24...
0870 903 9500

24. ...continued from page 22
is always backup should a printer fail.
This has both productivity and financial
benefits, as it removes the need to pay
for expensive support contracts with
four-hour response rates.
Lexmark has standardised on A4
devices on the four floors of office
space, as they cost less to buy, take up
less room, consume less energy than
A3 devices and meet 95% of print
requirements. Each L-shaped floor has
two B&W MFPs (with colour scanning);
one B&W printer and one colour printer.
In addition, there are two A3 devices
on the ground floor that can be used for
longer print runs or the small minority
of print jobs that require A3 paper sizes
or advanced finishing options, such as
colour marketing documents that are
now printed on-demand.
Secure printing
Secure print is a key element of
Lexmark’s managed print services,
and not just because it eliminates
wasteful printing. According to
Deschamps, it also helps overcome
one of the most common objections
to printer rationalisation – the loss of
confidentiality.
“Data security and confidentiality is
a focus of IT departments. You have to
go through firewalls and passwords to
get to data but then you can print on
a device that can be visited by anyone.
There is a disconnect between the
effort that has been put into IT security
over the past 30 years and the amount
that has been focused on the printed
document,” he said.
Deschamps believes that this
“disconnect” is a major cause of wasteful
printing practices.
Paper Cuts
The results
By reducing the size of its printer fleet
from 67 to 20 devices, Lexmark has
cut direct costs by 44%. But the new
infrastructure also has on-going savings:
the cost of consumables is down by 25%
per annum and energy consumption is
55% lower.
Further savings have come from
more efficient printing practices that
have helped Lexmark reduce paper
consumption by 43%, from 508,000 to
288,000 pages per annum.
These savings have been achieved by
setting two-sided (duplex) printing as the
default – “We have pre-click duplex and
because we are lazy we never unclick it,”
Deschamps said – and by implementing
Secure Printing to eliminate unnecessary
printing, maintain data security and
provide a record of printer usage.
“We cut the number of pages printed
from 508,000 to 403,700 by eliminating
the pages we didn’t need to print. Then
duplex took this down to 288,000 sheets
of paper,” Deschamps explained.
24 sustainabletimes
“Confidentiality is the number one
blocking factor for rationalising a printer
infrastructure,” he said. “If you want to
replace desktop printers with workgroup
MFPs, the first thing people will tell you
is that they want a personal printer for
confidentiality reasons.”
Lexmark’s solution is a Secure Print
system that keeps print jobs on the
server until the user has identified
himself at the printer of his choice.
Secure printing has three benefits: it
guarantees data security, as print jobs
will only be printed when the originator
is there to collect the hard copy; it
prevents people from printing documents
and then forgetting to pick them up or
leaving them too long in a shared output
tray where they can become mixed
together and need to be reprinted; and
it stops people from printing documents
just for the sake of it – research carried
out by Ipsos for Lexmark indicates that
one in five pages goes straight to the
waste bin without ever being read.
The simplest form of secure printing
– entering a PIN code on the device itself
– is a standard feature of many printers.
However, at Suresnes, Lexmark uses a
more sophisticated and seamless system
based on the swipe cards that employees
use to enter the building.
When someone wants to print a
document, he clicks a single, universal
print icon and the print job is sent to the
server where it remains until the user
swipes his badge at any device on the
network. If the user is at a printer with a
touch-screen display, he will be able to
select the print job he requires from a
list, but if he is at one without an e-Task
interface, all print jobs in his personal
queue will be printed.
At Suresnes, Secure Printing is applied
to all devices but as Eric Crump, Lexmark
EMEA manager of Large Accounts Solution
and Services Support, points out, there
is no reason why it can’t be limited to
specific devices on which it is important
to monitor and control usage. “One
customer put a badge reader on their
colour printer and the number of colour
pages printed declined by 50%,” he said.
Efficient workflows
Step four of a Lexmark managed print
service is the on-going appraisal of
existing processes to see how workflows
can be redesigned to reduce paper
consumption, for example by using
the scanning capability of MFPs to
implement electronic workflows.
The benefit of this exercise will
be greatest for businesses that have
paper-intensive processes, such as
loans approval, but any organisation
will have tasks that can be streamlined.
For example, at Suresnes, Lexmark has
removed the need for photocopying by
setting up a shared hard drive where
people can store PDFs of scanned
documents that others can access and
download.
Conclusion
In the current economic climate, it
is not easy to square the need to
economise with the desire to introduce
more sustainable business practices.
Gaining control over print costs allows
organisations to satisfy these sometimes
incompatible demands. The larger and
more dispersed the organisation, the
greater the potential benefits, but as
Lexmark demonstrates at Suresnes, even
small businesses can achieve significant
financial and environmental savings by
choosing to Print Less, Save More.
www.lexmark.co.uk 01628 480503
0870 903 9500

25. Putting your
waste to work
Di-vert is a new service
designed to minimise the
environmental impact of
office moves and release the
hidden value of unwanted
assets. Sustainable Times
spoke to Anthony Robinson,
managing director of business
moving specialists Robinsons,
to find out more
According to Anthony Robinson,
managing director of business
moving specialists Robinsons,
facilities managers do two things
with their office furniture when
moving premises: they either put it in
a skip or they put it in a dark corner
and forget about it.
In many cases, these ‘dark corners’
are Robinson’s own warehouses, where
clients store as many as 200 tonnes of
old desks and other equipment that will
never see the light of day.
Robinson argues that keeping
furniture in storage or sending it
to landfill is both financially and
environmentally irresponsible, as
there are organisations that can make
productive use of unwanted items and
will even pay to take them off people’s
hands.
In order to help organisations realise
the value of unwanted furniture, IT
equipment, vending machines and
other items and reduce the estimated
500,000 tonnes of furniture sent
to landfill each year, Robinsons is
supporting its business relocation
service with a new range of intelligent
recycling solutions that can help
businesses cut the cost of relocation
and meet corporate social responsibility
(CSR) policies.
“Di-Vert is an intelligent, sustainable
recycling solution that unlocks hidden
value for end of term furniture, IT
www.binfo.co.uk
equipment and vending machines,”
explained Robinson.
“We will take unwanted items away
and make sure they don’t go to landfill.
We will find someone to pay money for
them. Or, if that’s not possible, we’ll get
them broken down for re-use. The main
benefit is that instead of losing cash,
some money will be coming back to an
organisation from second-hand or scrap
value.”
Fully audited
Another benefit of Di-vert is that it is
fully audited. By providing clients with
a full audit trail of what happens to
items once they have been collected,
Robinsons helps them demonstrate
compliance with corporate social
responsibility (CSR) policies.
“Disposing of unwanted items
“
…pulped
down
and used
for horse
bedding…
”
responsibly doesn’t have to be costly
and it can bring financial rewards as
well as CSR benefits because we give
facilities managers a full audit trail and
a certificate showing this is what will
happen to the old vending machine or
whatever it is,” Robinson said.
“Most furniture will have a use for
someone else who might not need
the ultimate in a brand spanking new
image, such as second- or third-tier
organisations that don’t have the
budget for the very best but who
can take 200 desks that are seven or
so years old. When furniture gets to
20 or 30 years old, you are looking
at charitable donations or shipping
it abroad. But if it does have to be
broken down, the materials market is
buoyant, so the metal chassis can be
recycled, as can the wood itself, which
can be turned into cabinets or pulped
down and used for horse bedding for
example.”
Landfill savings
One of the first organisations to benefit
from Di-vert is Salford Royal Foundation
Trust, which contracted Robinsons to
remove bedroom and office furniture
from 160 rooms in a 10-storey block
prior to its demolition.
Robinsons arranged for the
furniture to be donated to a number
of local charities including the Tree
of Life Centre, Age Concern, Salford
Community Transport and Wesley
Furniture. By making use of old
furniture in this way and by providing
an audit trail, Di-vert has helped the
Trust meet its CSR obligations and save
money on landfill taxes.
“There is a commercial reality here,”
explained Robinson. “We can actually
make money from unwanted items.
Di-vert provides businesses with a
process for disposing of furniture and
equipment in a responsible way that
also gives them the opportunity to
make savings and generate revenue.”
www.di-vert.co.uk 0800 833 638
sustainabletimes 25

26. Green marks
File under recycled
Acco is expanding its range of 100%
recycled polypropylene products with
a 10-strong range of document filing
wallets, expander files, folders and
binders. Like the Rexel ecodesk range
of desktop accessories introduced
last year (see pic), ecofiling products
are made from 100% post-consumer
waste. Many other recycled
polypropylene products on the market
are merely made from manufacturing
off-cuts and trimmings. All ecodesk and
ecofiling products are 100% recyclable.
www.acco.co.uk
What’s
New…
Stabilo, which in 1998 became the first pencil company to gain FSC certification,
has established a new GREENrange of pencils, crayons and drylighters. All
GREENrange products are 100% FSC-certified indicating that they are made
from wood that comes from forests managed according to the highest
ecological and social standards. The pencils feature an environmentally friendly
matt varnish. www.stabilo.com
Acco
GREENinitiative
award
Sustainable TIMES
WINTER 08/09
Boxing clever
Eco-boxes is the responsible way to
move house or office. The new internet
company supplies what it describes as
‘gently re-used’ moving boxes both to
individuals and removals companies.
Once you have finished with the
boxes, Eco-boxes will pick them up
and give them to someone else
to use. In this way, it hopes to
reduce the estimated 18,000
tonnes of cardboard boxes
thrown away when people
move home. ‘Eco moving
packs’ contain a selection
of 16 different size boxes;
10 metres of oxo biodegradable bubble wrap; non
toxic bio-degradable parcel
tape; and a marker pen made
from recycled products.
01756 795962
www.eco-boxes.co.uk
Paper-free reading
The paper industry has more than enough
problems without having to contend with
a potentially disruptive technology like digital paper.
It is still early days, but digital readers from the likes of
Sony, BeBook and Amazon (the Kindle) are becoming
more common. To encourage more people to take-up
paper-free reading, iRex Technologies is offering its
new iRex Digital Reader 1000 series with subscriptions
to a choice of 800 newspaper titles, including The
Daily Telegraph, Independent, Observer, The Guardian
and the Evening Standard. Aimed at business users,
the iRex DR1000 has a large display that allows
e-newspapers to retain their original layouts.
www.irextechnologies.com
www.irextechnologies.com/press/downloads
A printer like no other
Don’t let looks deceive you: the Epson EC-01 is unlike any other inkjet printer. Instead of
taking user-replaceable cartridges, it comes with its own non-refillable ink supply. Far from
being environmentally irresponsible, this system is designed to eliminate the waste and
expense of cartridge-based devices. Once the printer’s 8,000-page ink supply has run out,
the customer is encouraged to return the whole printer to Epson who will refill it and sell it
back to the customer at a discount. Each printer can be refilled twice, after which Epson will
recycle it. Whether this system works in practice remains to be seen, but it is an interesting
alternative to cartridge-based devices. The Epson EC-01 is initially being made available to
education organisations. It is available from www.rm.com for £279. www.epson.co.uk
26 sustainabletimes
0870 903 9500

27. No hiding from BBS Professional
BBS Professional
GREENinitiative
award
Businesses can take their first steps to reduced energy consumption by
installing BBS Professional, an appliance-level smart meter management
solution from Bye Bye Standby. The system reports the energy use of
individual appliances back to central analysis software, giving organisations
real-time and historic views of the energy consumption of employees,
air conditioning systems, lighting and other electrical items. Because BBS
Professional is an appliance-level solution, it allows managers to see the
contribution of individual employees or devices making it easier to set
individual targets. The system can be used with 13 modules, ranging
from simple plug-in sockets to wired-in air-conditioning monitoring
units. All incorporate a remotely operated switch that enables devices
to be turned off remotely. 01844 337 801
www.ByeByeStandby.com/professional
Sustainable TIMES
WINTER 08/09
Wrapper’s delight
Right on the button
Much of the 83km2 of wrapping paper
used in the UK this Christmas is nonrecyclable and will have ended up in
landfill. Reusable fabric Wrapsacks from
Onya Bags are being promoted as a
green alternative, as they can be passed
from person to person until they wear
out. Each one is individually numbered,
which enables its life story to be
tracked via the global WrapSack website
(assuming users take the time to update
the system). Prices start at £3.20.
www.onyabags.co.uk
One For All’s Energy Saver remote control and Power Plug is
just what you need if you regularly leave the TV and associated
equipment on standby overnight. To turn off attached equipment
and reduce energy consumption to 10% of stand-by levels, all you
need to do is press the little green button on the remote control.
The £34.99 plug can cut electricity to up to four devices including a TV,
DVD and satellite/cable digibox. A typical set of AV equipment uses
9.7 Watts an hour if left on standby: by using the ‘Energy Saver’, this
can be cut to 0.9 Watts. www.oneforall.com/energysaver
The better letter
UK Mail has launched a national postal
service that is claimed to reduce the
carbon impact of mailings by 80% and
costs by as much as 60%. Suitable both
for consumers and businesses, imail
lets users send mail from their PC for
next-day delivery nationwide. Mail
is sent electronically to the UK Mail
sorting centre closest to the delivery
address, removing much of the travel
associated with traditional postal
collections and deliveries. It is then
printed (with a scanned signature), put
in an envelope and sorted. The price of
next-day delivery starts at 51 pence
per item, which includes all stationery,
production and first class delivery.
www.ukmail.biz
Second life
How long before all those games consoles given as Christmas presents end up
at the local dump? And what will happen to them after that? Thanks
to the recycling efforts of businesses like Pli, many will be remade
into useful products, like the 100% recycled and 100% recyclable
REEE stacking chair, each one of which contains 2.4kg of plastic
from the casings of games consoles. The first product
to receive the Eden Project’s Waste Neutral mark,
the REEE chair is available in black or grey as
standard: custom colours can be supplied for
larger orders. www.plidesign.co.uk
What’s
New…
www.binfo.co.uk
sustainabletimes 27

28. Many thanks to everyone who
entered the Sustainable Times/
Konica Minolta competition.
We asked readers to send in their
own energy-saving/waste-reduction
tips and it is clear from the number
and quality of entries received that
sustainable practices are entrenched
in many of your businesses.
Unsurprisingly, given Sustainable
Times’ readership and the competition
sponsor, most suggestions related to
printing and paper consumption.
The most common suggestion was to
print on both sides of the page (duplex)
to reduce paper consumption. This was
followed by the recommendation to reuse paper printed on one side, either by
placing it in a designated printer tray for
memos, drafts and internal documents
or by cutting it up and making notepads
for phone messages, doodles etc.
Other suggestions for reducing paper
consumption were only to print when
you need to and to use the printer
preview feature to eliminate printing
errors.
Also on the subject of printing,
Martin Evans of Bristol advised readers
NEVER to accept that a default setting
is best for your business, stating that ‘it
is always a compromise’. In other words,
make use of draft printing settings to
minimise toner usage when printing
28 sustainabletimes
internal or short-lived documents.
Another tip, from Mr Baker of Cardiff,
is to print in black and white rather than
colour – an interesting suggestion as
the debate around colour tends to focus
on its cost and rarely touches on the
environmental consequences of extra
toner use and the additional cartridges
that colour printing entails.
Andrew Cakebread of Chatham,
Kent has some good advice for inkjet
printer users, viz. to unclog cartridges
that have dried up by placing them in a
cup of steamy hot water; while Howard
Carpenter of Peacehaven suggests
recycling ink cartridges via organisations
such as Traidcraft and Oxfam or refilling
them with a refill kit and then using the
plastic syringe supplied to feed small
animals or apply bleach to areas of
fabric.
Peter Whittle of Fakenham took a
slightly different tack by addressing
not only how we produce paper but
how we consume it too. His energysaving/waste-reduction tip is to read
E-books rather than paperbased publications that use up
large amounts of pulp, water and
greenhouse gases.
ENERGY-SAVING
As expected, many readers sent in
energy-saving tips, the most common
of which was to turn off devices and not
leave them on standby.
Melanie Robson of Hexham,
Northumberland highlighted the fact
that chargers consume energy even
when the appliance they work with has
been detached and advised people to
switch off phone chargers and adapters
at the wall when they’re not in use.
Sylvia Martin, managing director of
Library Supply International, provided
a different perspective on the on/off
debate, pointing out that strip lights
use very high levels of power when
being switched on, so there are
certain areas where it is better to
leave them on
(e.g. toilets) rather than constantly
turning them on and off.
She also suggested leaving
food recycling bins outside offices
to create humus to put on bee-
green tips
Your suggestions for creating a more
sustainable workplace.
friendly, nectar-bearing shrubs and trees
recommended by the British Beekeepers
Association.
This was far from the only
horticultural suggestion. Others included
mixing shredded paper with green waste
to make compost for company plant
containers; and the following energyharvesting tip from Derek Harrison of
Swinton, Manchester: “Fill old 2-litre
plastic milk containers with water.
Place them around the base of the
greenhouse. They will absorb heat during
the day, which will be transferred during
the cool of the night.”
The energy-saving category also
includes the strangest suggestion,
which is to “Put your air freshener on
a timer so that in the night it switches
off”. Surely, penned by a satirist of the
highest order.
Among the more mainstream
suggestions were to buy a laptop for
your next computer upgrade as they use
less energy than desktop computers; to
turn the heating down; to install motion
sensor switches; and to share a bath –
though perhaps not in the workplace.
Underlining the extent to which
energy-saving is often simply a
matter of common sense and good
management,
Mr M Stead, project manager for
ONS, suggested de-cluttering
cars and vans to improve fuel
efficiency; while Mrs Tina Hunt
of Bromsgrove advised readers to
“always make sure that your
light fittings, bulbs/
neon tubes and
shades are cleaned
regularly. If you allow dust and dirt
to build up, you can lose up to 20%
of emitted light and may feel like
putting on another light.”
Another common-sense suggestion
was supplied by Hazel Rea of Colchester,
who wrote: “During the winter months
pull blinds on the South side up to
make use of solar gain - and encourage
staff to wear warmer clothes (office
staff often dress in the same weight of
clothes throughout the year) so that the
thermostat can be turned down a degree
or two.”
CATERING
Tea-making is one of the
more important office
activities and this was
reflected in the high
number of catering-
continued on page 30....
0870 903 9500

29. An enterprising new way to work
Small and medium businesses (SMEs) looking to increase
productivity, improve their appeal to current and
potential employees and raise their corporate social
responsibility (CSR) profile are turning to Enterprise,
a free workplace travel planning scheme.
Created by Transport for London (TfL) especially for the
Capital’s SME sector, Enterprise aims to help organisations
make better use of London’s transport system through the
development of a workplace travel plan.
A workplace travel plan is a business management tool
focused on improving access to your site and delivering a
range of organisational benefits. It enables staff, visitors
and customers to make sustainable travel choices with
confidence alongside increasing efficiency within your
organisation.
“There have been business benefits from the travel plan
– we send people half way across the world, so it's
important for us to emphasise our green credentials.
One additional unexpected benefit is that cyclists get to
work on time, since journey times are easily predictable.”
Chris Parrott, Director, Journey Latin America
One of the key factors behind the scheme is its
commitment to professional support throughout the
process. Tim Carter, Workplace Travel Planning
Relationship Manager at TfL, comments, “We have
professional, experienced and enthusiastic travel planners
and marketing personnel across London all focused on
this project, ensuring each business in Enterprise has a
travel plan devised that will work for them.”
Chris Parrott, Director of Journey Latin America – one
of the first organisations to sign up to Enterprise – agrees,
“The support we have received has been far reaching and
I have been really surprised by the impact of the initiative.
I didn’t imagine that it would be so easy to convince
people to change the way they travel to work. Amazing
what a bit of promotion can do!”
The workplace travel plan process first involves a site
audit and survey of staff (and potentially visitors or
customers depending on the business). This ensures that
relevant information and data about the organisation and
its employees is collected at the outset.
Tim Forrester, Travel Plan Coordinator at WESTTRANS
(one of a network of local coordinators promoting
Enterprise) explains, “We can help with this by providing
access to on-line surveys to reduce the time and effort
needed to collect and analyse the information. Plus we
can provide incentives to encourage as much feedback
as possible”.
The results and detailed analysis of the data by the
experts, informs the organisation’s workplace travel plan.
“Each travel plan is tailor made for every business, to
meet their individual transport concerns, travel needs
and location,” explains Tim Carter, “The recommendations
included, which are developed in consultation with each
business, are then implemented through a variety of
measures supported by the Enterprise team.”
Chris Parrott says he was surprised at how much
interest was generated by the Enterprise merchandise,
“There was a real buzz about the place – like excited
children waiting their turn for a luckydip.”
Cycling is often a popular mode with employers and
employees, mirroring the 91 per cent increase in cycling
across London since 2000. Through Enterprise, the cycle
support package can provide employees with helpful
items to get them pedalling, such as cycle repair kits and
reflective slap-wraps. It can also help improve facilities at
the workplace through the offer of free cycle stands.
Tim Carter explains, “Enterprise will give you and your organisation all
the advice, information and support needed, tailored to your strategic
business needs, and delivered in a flexible way that helps you the most.
By implementing a workplace travel plan, and developing a better
understanding of your employees’ travel needs, you’ll make your
organisation even more employee-focused. Plus, you will help support a
shift towards walking, cycling, public transport and car sharing to the
benefit of your company, the local environment and London’s economy.”
“We’re here to answer any questions that you may have about Enterprise,
the process of developing a travel plan, or how you can get the most out
of it.”
To get in touch with the Enterprise team
call 0870 094 9011
Email: enterprise@anewwaytowork.org
Web: www.anewwaytowork.org