3 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint at Work

It’s Eco-Fact Friday and This Week We Talk Smaller Footprints

A carbon footprint is a measure of greenhouse gases released through daily activities like driving a car, carrying groceries home in disposable plastic bags, turning on lights, and more.

Greenhouse gases contribute to global warming and lead to climate change so reducing your carbon footprint across all areas of your life can help reduce these negative impacts.

Over the course of a week, people spend a lot of time at work and it can be easy to contribute to your carbon footprint without even realizing it. We know our friends in our online community are looking for ways to go green and reduce their carbon footprint at work so this week for Eco-Fact Friday, we are offering up three ideas to help you make a smaller footprint at work.

Here are three easy ways to reduce your carbon footprint while at work.

1. Carpool or Use Public Transportation – The quickest way to rack up your carbon footprint is transportation. Unfortunately, this cannot be completely avoided, but you can minimize your impact. Check around the office and see if you have coworkers who live near you and are interested in carpooling. Besides reducing your carbon footprint carpooling offers tons of advantages, like reducing wear and tear on your vehicle which can extend the life of your car and fewer trips to the pump will save money. Also, consider taking a train or bus to work. Some employers reimburse employees for the cost of a train or bus pass; so again, you can help the environment and your bottom line. Depending on how close you live to work you may be able to walk or ride a bike weather permitting.
2. Use a Reusable Bag to Carry Your Lunch and Other Items to Work – Consider swapping your brown paper lunch bags for an insulated reusable lunch bag like these custom, lead-free options we offer. Not only will you help the environment, but your food will stay at a better temperature during your morning commute, and should anything leak, the mess will be better contained. You can also use a reusable bag to carry a laptop, files and other items to and from work. When you opt to use a reusable bag instead of a disposable plastic bag you minimize your carbon footprint.
3. Ditch Disposable Items in the Office Kitchen – When you use disposable plates, utensils, and cups every day at work you are incurring a sizable carbon footprint. Plastic and Styrofoam items use up nonrenewable resources during the manufacturing process, when items are transported to your office by car or delivery truck, gasoline is burned and when the used items are carted off to a landfill by a garbage truck more greenhouse gases are released into the environment. Stocking your kitchen with durable, reusable items reduces your office’s carbon footprint and the amount of trash that is generated.

Small Changes Really Add Up

These small changes can add up and have a big impact, especially if you’re able to get all of your coworkers on board that can drastically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases your workplace emits and this can have a huge impact. Here at FDP, when we go to lunch, we try to carpool as much as we can. It’s actually pretty fun.

To learn more about carbon footprints visit our friend Cyndi’s blog called Reduce Footprints and for more tips on how to reduce your environmental impact,  Visit THIS Page to check out our post on Reducing Your Carbon Footprint with Reusable Bags.

Photos

• www.ourplanet.org.uk (carbon footprint)
• en.wikipedia.org (subway)

• Eco-friendly Tips
• Shopping Bags