You don’t need solar panels or wind turbines in order to promote an eco-friendly workplace. While these additions would certainly help improve the environment, there are smaller alternatives that may be more practical.

According to statistics, consumers are more likely to buy from a company that is greener than others. Essentially, you could improve your target market by promoting an eco-friendly atmosphere in the business.

Here are nine products to help you go green at work.

1. Eco-Friendly Office Furniture

True eco-friendly office furniture is made with recycled components or those that do not degrade the environment. You can find everything from desks to chairs to fill your office space.

From metal to wood, many manufacturers offer a wide selection of green alternatives to some of the most utilized components in the business. Some owners will go so far as to buy strictly used furniture in order to reduce trash impact on the environment.

Used equipment is easy to come by both online and off. In fact, a lot of home-based businesses start from furniture and equipment picked up from garage sales.

2. Solar Laptop Bags

If your organization has employees who work from their laptops, a solar bag could keep the unit charged without plugging it into the wall. Whether your staff is in their offices or out in the field, these bags easily prove their worth.

Thanks to various manufacturers, these can be found in a wide range of sizes and colors. Many brands and designs are also made using recycled materials.

3. Recycled Paper

A lot of companies that require heavy printing have moved to purchasing recycled paper as opposed to new reams. You can find these at nearly any office supply store and it works just as well as a new sheet.

You can also find sticky note pads made with the same materials. In many instances, these reams of recycled paper are cheaper than the newer alternatives.

4. Stapler without the Staples

It can be quite a pain to run out of staples at the most inopportune time. Instead of attaching your papers together with traditional metal staples, you could eliminate the need for this office expense.

Some staple-free staplers can punch up to seven pieces of paper together by creating a small hole and fold within the stack. This device eliminates that waste of time as well as metal bands.

5. Tankless Water Heaters

If your business has a water heater, a tankless system may be more ideal. In a traditional water heater, gas and/or electricity are used constantly to make sure the temperature of the water is maintained.

Whether staff uses it or not, the water heater uses resources to maintain its temperature. A tankless system provides heated water on demand.

This has potential to cut costs exponentially in the workplace when it comes to gas or electric bills.

6. Thermal Barrier Paint Additives

Mixing thermal barrier additives into the paint of your office space can enhance the ambient temperature of virtually any room.

Many of these products, such as Insuladd, have been scientifically proven to keep areas cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. This helps your business by reducing the amount of time air conditioners and heaters are used throughout the day.

7. Motion Sensing Light Switches

Do you know how long the lights are on in the restroom or break rooms without people actually in them? It is pointless to leave these lights on for extended periods of time.

Motion sensing switches will turn on the light when someone is present and then turn them off automatically. Your business could drastically cut how much energy is lost in these rooms with a unit that costs less than $30 at any hardware store.

8. Reusable Whiteboard Markers

Whiteboards have long since replaced chalkboards and are often used in the office for a variety of purposes. Instead of buying disposable dry erase markers, you can fill your office with refillable alternatives.

Instead of stressing when a marker has finally dried out, you simply refill the unit with the dry erase ink and you’re ready to go.

9. Cloud-based Apps

A paperless system can save on a long list of expenses that could be draining your bank account. Paper, ink, replacements and repairs are only several of these costs.

In reality, a paperless system also promotes a more efficient workplace while reducing the time that is lost looking for documents. Moving as many of your procedures as you can to the Cloud will save man-hours while promoting a mobile-office experience.

Ways to Market Your Green Initiative

Did you know that about 64% of millennials would spend more on eco-friendly products if access was easier? This goes to show just how much of an impact environmental consciousness has in the business dynamic.

While a green initiative shouldn’t evolve purely around boosting your business, that fact that people will spend more with the company is a nice byproduct.

What can you do to market your move to go green at work?

Website Graphic

There is nothing wrong with shameless advertising. If you are implementing things in your business that can help the environment, a small graphic on your site could help.

This can show online consumers your commitment to helping the environment.

Social Media

Social media is one of the best ways to reach a wide audience in a short amount of time. Every time you implement a new green tactic, make sure those on sites like Facebook and Twitter know about it.

Online consumers are not the only ones who see the posts as even your local customers are using these social sites.

Window Signs

If you make significant changes to your business to go green, window signs may be just as valuable to local consumers as a banner is to those visiting your site.

You don’t need a huge image, but something that can get everyone’s attention could be ideal.

It’s Efficient to Go Green

To go green at work, it doesn’t have to be purely centered around saving the environment. These products can also help you save in energy costs and boost efficiency in the workplace.

An eco-friendly environment may improve how your business builds a budget. Look around your establishment and consider what you could replace that will help the organization in both costs and income.

The post 9 Must-Have Products to Go Green at Work appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

With ever changing technologies in solar panel design, having your own set of solar panels on your home is becoming more affordable and feasible than ever before. I was able to sit down with a friend of mine who is a Professor of Systems Design Engineering to discuss his experience in installing solar panels on his home.

Mark: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. The changes in solar panel technology lately have been pretty staggering. What made you decide to install solar panels on your home?

KP: I’ve always thought it would be nice to have some sort of renewable energy in my family’s lives. I am also an energy enthusiast, so once the Ontario government introduced incentives for solar panel purchases and the numbers added up, I knew it was finally time to invest in this technology.

Mark: What about the cost for these solar panel modules. I hear they can be pretty expensive. What is the investment involved in placing solar panels on your home?

KP: The investment for this system in my case was around $30,000 CAD. This was for the 6.63KW solar panel modules as well as installation and the equipment needed to transmit the energy back to the grid. The price for these panels has likely dropped since I installed them.

Mark: That is fairly significant, but certainly the price keeps dropping dramatically as the technology is evolving. How long will it take for you to pay off the cost of these panels?

KP: It will take about 10 years for these solar panels to pay off the loan I have for them. After that initial period, any energy generated by them is pure profit. This payback period will change drastically depending on the number of panels and the loan on it, should you get one.

Mark: How much energy is created by these panels?

KP: The expected energy per year is 4500KW/h for our setup. This is about 80% of my own energy usage in a year.

Mark: So you are able to generate this energy and power your own home with it?

KP: No, the energy generated by our solar panels is transmitted back to the power grid. The reason for this is that storing energy is difficult to do, and the amount of energy captured by the panels varies depending on the amount of sunlight on a particular day.

Mark: Does that mean your home is powered by regular electricity from the grid?

KP: That’s correct. Our household is powered by the standard power grid and our solar energy is transmitted back to the power company to provide green energy to any of its customers. This allows us to have consistent power, and contribute to a greener power grid here in Ontario.

Mark: Does the power company then calculate and credit your usage depending on how much energy you send to them?

KP: That’s right; we are issued a credit to our account which offsets our energy bills with the energy we were able to generate with our solar panels.

Mark: Your house is completely surrounded by trees. Does that pose an issue for the panels?

KP: We lose about 40% of the potential energy that the panels could be capturing by the amount of tress around the house. Luckily for us, this still leaves us with plenty of energy to capture. For your readers who don’t have large trees to contend with, they will be able to capture quite a lot of sunlight!

Mark: What about snow during the winter and other debris on the panels?

KP: Snow typically melts off within a few days and debris doesn’t settle because the panels are on an incline so neither poses an issue. Significant power is not captured during the winter, so a little snow for a few days is not much of an issue.

Mark: Does the amount of energy the solar panels capture degrade over time?

KP: All solar panel modules are created differently, but with the panels that I chose, by the end of the 12th year, they will still be able to capture 90% of their original capacity. By the end of the 25th year, they will be able to capture 82% of that. Even after 25 years, these panels will still be able to produce significant green power.

Mark: I know you’re busy, so I’ll just ask one final question. Are there any resources you would recommend for any of our readers interested in placing solar panels on their homes or offices?

KP:  Every area of the world will have different regulations and companies that manufacture solar panels. The best thing to do would be to speak to your local government on the regulations for solar panels, and get detailed quotes from companies in your area to figure out if it is the right choice for you.

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Solar energy is just one of many renewable energy sources that we support here at GreenGeeks. I hope our discussion today shed some light on how you can utilize this great technology in your own home. Just like computers,solar panel technology over time is becoming more efficient and more affordable. How do you think we will make solar panels better in the future? Share your thoughts in the comment section bellow!

The post Things You Need to Know About Solar Panels For Your Home appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

Designed by Kyuho Song & Boa Oh, the Window Socket captures the power of the sun within its battery, and allows you to plug a device in the back to give you up to 10 hours of 100W electricity.

This concept really appeals to us because we can see our staff placing these on their window during the day, and using them at night to charge their smartphones or tablets. Every bit of energy we can take off the power grid and replace with clean energy is a huge win in our books.

The window socket is designed to be as small and intuitive as possible. Pull it off of your window and throw it in your bag or purse to have clean energy whenever you need it.

The device would have a 1000mAh battery which would be enough to power a mobile phone or other portable devices.

You can read more about this product by visiting Yanka Design.

The post ‘Window Socket’: Power your gadgets with a solar-powered window plug! appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

A lot of people are using Tablet’s and e-readers, and the more they use them, the more power they draw from the grid to charge them up again. That’s what makes the SolarKindle Lighted Cover such a cool green gadget. With Amazon Kindle being the hottest e-reader on the planet, SolarFocus has designed the world’s first solar-powered e-reader cover. The cover features an environmentally friendly design with a lightweight, flexible and high-grade solar panel built right into the cover. Now you can keep your kindle charged up without having to plug it in! It also has a built-in LED lamp to make night time reading a breeze.

Some stats on the charge: 1 hour of solar charge gives you 3 days of uninterrupted use. The USB/solar dual charging reserve battery provides backup equal to months of unplugged reading time. The cost ranges from $39 to $90 on Amazon. Not a bad trade off to get protect and charge your Kindle!

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The device runs off a very low voltage micro USB power supply, or 4 of those cool USBCell AA batteries we featured earlier, making it incredibly energy efficient. The Raspberry Pi Foundation was formed with the goal of teaching kids around the world how to program with affordable computers. They are a non-profit organization, and each purchase helps them continue to grow. The credit card sized device runs Debian Linux, so this computer is definitely for our true geek clients out there.

Have you used this device before? Let us know what you think in the comment section.

You can learn more about the project at http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs

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Produced by Moixa Energy, USBCELL batteries are simply batteries that recharge from any USB port. They require no separate recharging devices, cradles or cables and can be used exactly like a normal battery. The design itself is rather like a typical memory stick with its flip top lid and honestly speaking they might do to regular batteries what memory sticks did to floppy discs.

The batteries have a capacity of 1300mAH which is similar to most NiCD and NiMH batteries. It usually takes 5 hours to charge a totally flat battery. It includes an LED on the side that will light up to indicate charging, flash for 10 minutes after charging is complete and then switch off after that.

A 2-pack of AA batteries are available for $10 to $20 on Amazon.

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