Despite Al Gore’s best efforts, awareness of environmental issues is still too low and even among young adults it is not their biggest concern. In a recent Business Week article, the environment ranked 7th among issues that concern Gen Y’ers. If it isn’t that big an issue to this generation, God help us.
The other day I noticed a simple way to get the word out – email. More to the point every email I send. And let me tell you I send a lot of them. I probably send 300-400 a week at work. Some people still print out their emails. I have no idea why anyone would want to print any of my emails but in theory, if everyone of my emails was printed out, it could be a 500 sheet pack in a week and half. Over a year, that’s a lot of trees.
One of my colleagues, added this simple little tag to her email. I copied it and added to my signature, now everyone of my emails has a gentle reminder to save a tree. Many would say that this is probably the most valuable message in my emails.
Here is another one that points to Treehugger, the environmental site
Saving the Planet One Week At A Time – the Story So Far
Week 4 – Adding an environmental reminder in your email signature
Week 3 – Buying back the CO2 generated by my air travel
Week 2 – Switching to environmentally friendly light bulbs
Week 1 – Switching to recyclable toilet paper and paper towels
Good idea – I got an email from a client today that had that message on (*) and I should add it to my signature.
Biggest difference our office could do would be to add a re-cycle bin rather than just one bin for all rubbish.
To give you an idea of the amount of paper that goes through even a small company like ours, our laserjet printer’s page count is over a million!
Keep up the good work
(*) which, er, I printed out 🙁 however it contained some points wanted to think about.
Great idea IF……IF you knew anything about economics. The fact is paper companies plant far more trees than individuals, NGOs, or governments. Why? Because their business survival depends on a ready supply of wood fiber to make paper. Trees are crops. When paper use increases, the planners in these companies plant more trees. When paper use declines, fewer trees are planted. Funny how so many of “eco-truths” are so very wrong and do more damage than good.