Earth Day: 5 Ways Your Notebook Can Help You Be More Green
In the spirit of Earth Day we’ve come up with a list of ways you can use your notebook to be more green. A lot of other computer sites are focusing on how to reduce the amount of energy your notebook uses, but that’s peanuts compared to what you can do if you look at your notebook as a tool to be green, rather than part of the problem.
I’m not a hard-core environmentalist by any means, but I’ve definitely cut down on my energy consumption and reduced the amount of resources I consumer while improving the quality of my life. If you follow some or all of these tips you will live a greener lifestyle, while saving a ton of time and money without sacrificing a whole lot.
1) Work from Home
When I graduated from college I landed a media consulting gig that was 27 miles from home. With the San Francisco Bay Area’s congested highways and bridges that meant I was burning more than four gallons of fuel per day. I’ve had many gigs since then and now work from my home office most days.
Most of my friends either drive or take a train to work, sit in a cubicle all day and punch away at a keyboard and/or talk on the phone - things that can easily be done from a home office. Obviously not all jobs can be done remotely, but most office jobs can be done from anywhere you have a notebook and a WiFi connection. If you’re schedule’s packed with face-to-face meetings, get comfy with Skype video chat or consider working from home at least some of the time.
2) Kill the Paper in Your Life
Start by gettin rid of junk mail, bank statements and your newspaper and magazine subscriptions.
I do all of my banking online, except for the occasional trip to the ATM to deposit a check or to get cash. You can save a ton of paper, energy, time and money by fully utilizing your bank’s online tools. Ask your bank to stop sending you paper statements and they’ll send you email notifications when a digital version is ready for you to view online. I use Bank of America’s billpay and it saves me several trips to the post office, about 20 checks and stamps per month.
Virtually every newspaper and magazine posts their content online. Read your local newspaper’s news online and unsubscribe from magazines that you don’t have a passion for.
StopJunkMail.org has some useful tips on how to get rid of unwanted junk mail. Ironically, you have to print letters and send them by snail mail to most of the junk mailers.
3) Shop from Home
Shopping from home can save a lot of fuel, money and time. It’s much more efficient for the UPS guy to carry one more package than for you to drive all about town and you can buy anything you can imagine online.
Most online stores offer free or subsidized shipping. I do a lot of my shopping on Amazon.com, which offers unlimited two-day shipping for $79 as part of its Amazon Prime program. When I need something overnight it’s only $3.99 per item, regardless of size or weight. I buy a lot of my computers and electronics from Amazon, but I’ve also sourced macaroni and cheese, toothbrushes, and toilet paper from Amazon.com recently. It takes some time getting used to having household items dropped off on a regular basis, but it saves a lot of trips to the store.
4) Use Your Notebook to Plan Your Driving Trips
I don’t suggest you become a recluse and stay at home. Before heading out for a drive head over to Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps. Both services show real-time traffic conditions so you can plan a route that doesn’t involve sitting in traffic and burning $4 per gallon gas. You can also use these services to discover more efficient routes.
5) Don’t Fly: Use Your Notebook’s WebCam and Online Meeting Services
There’s no replacement for in-person meetings, but flying cross country just for a few minutes for “face time” uses about the same amount of fuel the average driver uses over six months. Learn how to use a service like WebEx and a video chat service like Skype.
One of my friends gave his in-laws a notebook with a webcam for Christmas and trained them on video chat. The in-laws now get to ’see’ their daughter on a regular basis and said it’s one of the reasons they won’t be flying from New York to California, which they usually do annually, this year. Needless to say, my friend is much happier about avoiding two-weeks with the in-laws than he is about saving the planet.
Computer Consultants Secrets Blog
April 22nd at 8:50pm
Thanks for these great tips! Environmental issues are becoming more and more important as time progresses, and a lot of people in all areas of business are starting to eliminate paper. Definitely one of the big things that people are moving away from is faxes. It’s really easy to create PDF documents these days, and online faxing can really save paper (and trees, of course). A lot of IT consultants think that going green is a hassle and will actually make their lives more complicated. But a lot of studies as well as the trend towards virtualization that is becoming a possibility for all sizes of businesses – even small businesses that previously couldn’t afford this solution because it was too expensive – is making “green” philosophies actually more efficient ways to run businesses than running businesses the “old-fashioned” way. There’s actually a good link to an article on the subject I found in my blog that provides some pretty interesting information on the subject. Thanks a lot again for this entry!