The Weight of Money

While I don’t classify myself as a major environmentalist, I get upset at the over consumption of materials I see every day. It seems that environmental issues have been constantly popping up on my radar and I’m starting to get moved enough to act. My new job in a corporate office brings up an endless number of issues and I wonder what environmental ethics exist in corporate culture.

One of the corporate values that have been communicated through actions is the importance of looking good. This includes physical appearance of staff, neatness of the building, and the visual presentation of materials. Everything circulated within and from the office must have a certain polished appearance.

Right now, I’m stuffing 10 page, full-color, glossy newsletters into crisp, white corporate-labeled envelopes. These newsletters are not getting all dressed up to be sent out to customers; these are internal newsletters written for managers and directors. We’ve printed more than 2,000 copies that will get thumbed through and, maybe, filed away for later reference. The envelopes we’re stuffing them will go directly in the trash upon arrival. Why are we putting them in envelopes?

It seems that the thrifty and environmentally conscious thing to do would be to skip the envelop and just put labels on the newsletter. Or, if envelopes must be used, get some recycled ones and skip on the company letter head. Also, did we really need to publish a full-color newsletter on glossy paper — none of which is recycled? Where is that line where environmental and financial concerns are balanced with the need to add visual pizzazz?

Our office also has a behemoth color printer that is always running. No job is too small or too large for this printer and it is the first choice copier. We also have a great black and white printer that sits motionless next to the color monster. I’ve attended meetings where every piece of paper is color printed, just to throw it out when I get back to my desk. Black and white copies would have gotten the job done just as well and conserved toner and pricier paper.

Finally, my biggest complaint is that we don’t have a recycling program. We have recycling bins in the copy room, but I’ve learned that they just get tossed out with the trash. That color copier produces pounds of waste every day that doesn’t belong in the trash. I’ve recently contacted the local county to explore some business solutions for recycling, and hope to get something started. However, I’ve been warned that it will be a difficult challenge since the office manager has expressed her opposition against recycling (I’m guessing she thinks it’ll make more work for her).

I’m wondering if there is anything I can do to change the “looking good” culture. I know that there is a deeply held belief that the corporate office must be dripping with class, but what about appearing environmentally considerate too? I will start with my department and see what I can do to change some of their habits and go from there. Hopefully, we’ll drop the color staff meeting agendas and lose the envelops for the next outgoing newsletter.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under values, work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.