Ten Tips for Improving Your Company’s Sustainability Profile

Its all about the triple bottom line. Embracing the bottom line in terms of economics, environmental, and social values. Your Green offices will embrace all of these values and your boss will love you for it because in addition to making the company look good, it will save money too.

1. Work with a certified waste management company and ask them to provide you with advice for minimizing waste, and where possible gleaning some returns for your efforts. Many companies, notably Waste Management, Inc., have created special e-cycling programs for computers and electronic waste as well as

2. Buy post-consumer recycled content paper. Many of the big dogs in office supply are now offering recycled paper as an option including Staples, Office Depot, Quill, Target, as well as some of the specialty companies like Dolphin Blue, Monadnock Paper, The Green Office and others.

3. Use recyclable products in your bathrooms and kitchen areas.

4. Get an energy audit. In many cases the utility company that provides your electricity also provides programs for auditing your energy use. At the very least you can be sure that they can refer you to a professional in your area.

5. Institute programs to encourage carpooling among employees.

6. Institute programs to provide flex-time and telecommuting. Putting your company’s primary databases and working documents on the web using an intranet will allow your workers to work from any locale with broadband access. Several companies now provide low cost web-based intranet, conferencing and meeting software solutions: Webex, GoToMeeting, TalkPoint, Phase2 and others have some very affordable options.

7. Surge protectors do more than just preventing surges. If you have appliances plugged into surge protectors shutting off the surge protector or unplugging it entirely will prevent leakage that can really add up. At the very least, make it company policy to shut down computers, turn off lights and appliances after hours.

8. Look for EnergyStar rated appliances and office equipment.

9. Limit paper products in the kitchen and encourage employees to bring dishware from home.

10. Purchase renewable energy credits for your office, and offset your air travel, gas mileage and more.

Rowboats at Dusk, Newfound Lake, NH

Washday Book Benefits Project Laundry List

There's something warm and comforting about a wash line on a beautiful day. It is a timeless image that speaks to us of days gone by and days to come. It is a metaphor for our connection to the earth and our shared humanity.

"Washday" is a photographic essay that captures those moments and puts them on your coffee table. More than a conversation piece, it is an invitation to engage one another in a dialog about saving the planet and about those rare moments when a small experience - the smell of fresh sheets, the warmth of the sun, the flapping of clothes in the breeze - can serve as a joyous bridge connecting each of us to one another through a shared experience and the hope that connection can inspire.

The Artist behind Washday is Wayne D. King, an accomplished photographer. King's images are a celebration of life, blending the real and the surreal to achieve a sense of place or time that reaches beyond the moment into a dreamlike quintessentialism designed to spark an emotional response. Using digital enhancement, handcrafting, painting, and sometimes even straight photography, King takes the viewer to a place that is beyond simple truth to where truth meets passion, hope and dreams.

King holds a BS Degree in Environmental Conservation and a Masters Degree in Earth Science Education from the University of New Hampshire, Durham.

A three term former State Senator from New Hampshire, Wayne King was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor. King is also the founder of The Electronic Community, a group of social entrepreneurs working on social and development issues in Africa under the non-profit umbrella of the MaxImpact Institute.