How to Run a Green Office

Chances are, you're not ready to compost in the office kitchen or turn off all the lights. "Greening" your computing equipment, though, is a low-risk way for your business to not only help the environment but also reduce costs. It's also one of the hottest trends in business today.

"You want to be seen as a leader and not a laggard," says Nik Kaestner, the founder of Green Squared Consulting, which advises companies on being environmentally aware.

Reducing energy usage, which also reduces carbon dioxide emissions and your energy bill, is the most effective thing you can do. The average PC wastes about half the energy provided to it, according to the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, an industry group dedicated to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Encourage employees to shut down their PCs, or put them into sleep mode, when not working on them. Kaestner recommends using a smart power strip such as Smart Home Systems' $42 LCG4, which can tell when you've shut down your PC and turn off peripherals that are plugged into the computer.

You should replace older equipment with products that are Energy Star 4.0 certified. The new 4.0 standard, which went into effect in July, limits the energy a PC can use in sleep and idle modes and requires the use of an internal power supply that is 80 percent efficient. Dell's Energy Calculator compares the amount of electricity used by its Energy Star 4.0-rated OptiPlex 745 desktop PCs with a 17-inch LCD monitor and enabled power-management settings against that of a non-power-managed OptiPlex GX620 with a 17-inch CRT. Dell says using a rated OptiPlex 745 can save $70 and 0.56 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Energy Star's savings calculator reports more modest Electricity-cost savings of $2 per computer annually with an Energy Star-rated desktop instead of a nonrated one.