Our environmental Committee is working on adding additional initiatives to further reduce our company’s environmental footprint. The following lists these initiatives.

Our future initiatives, which involve the three R’s, follow.

• Put paper-recycling containers at everyone’s desk.
• Purchase environmentally friendly writing tools.
• Encourage staff to not use paper or plastic lunch bags. Use reusable cotton containers.
• Avoid using paper plates and plastic utensils for birthday cakes and staff lunches.
• Purchase digital cameras for your fleet vehicles, where needed. They are inexpensive and disposable cameras will no longer be needed. A digital camera could then serve for emergency purposes also.

Old floppy disks and old data-storing CDs can be sent to GreenDisk Services for recycling. Their website is www.greendisk.com

Our future initiatives, which involve saving paper, follow.

• With approval from the clients, final reports could be bound and printed double-sided. Keep hard copies of past reports electronically.
• Staff should be encouraged to e-mail documents when sharing or getting help on projects instead of printing documents.
• When checking final reports, check them on the computer with print preview instead of printing them off.
• Reuse scrap paper that is not needed that has been printed on one side only.
• Install cloth towel dispensers in bathrooms instead of using paper towels.
• Tea towels could be used in the kitchens instead of using paper towels.
• Field employees can fill in field paper work online, such as, PFR’s, PJO’s, near misses, monitoring sheets, expenses, etc
• Field staff can remove and reuse unused field forms from the field package to be used again.
• Vans could be equipped with laptops to cut down on the amount of paper used in the field.

Our future initiatives, which involve saving energy, follow.

• Lights in office buildings should not be left on after office hours. The last person leaving the building at night should turn off the lights. Sensors can be installed to have the lights turn on when someone enters the building. Sensors should be installed in areas where there is no need for lighting all day long such as in washrooms, boardrooms, and storage rooms.
• Power bars can be used at each computer workstation to save power. Energy is still being used even when your computer is turned off. Using power bars will save energy and money on your energy bills.
• Change light bulbs to energy-efficient light bulbs. Once a bulb burns out, new energy-efficient bulbs should be bought as replacements. Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) are four times more efficient, last up to ten times longer, and use 50-80% less energy than incandescence lights. They are also available in tubes. The T8 types of tubes produce more light per watt and are a third more efficient than the standard T12s tubes. Visit http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls for more information.
• Keep temperature at the most environmentally friendly temperature, which is 21-25 degrees Celsius. Fans can be installed to cool down the building in the summer months instead of using air conditioning. A $90 programmable thermostat can be purchased to save energy. It can be set so that the temperature drops to 15-18 degree Celsius at night in the winter and will turn off the air conditioning at night in the summer. During office hours, the programmable thermostat will then turn the temperature up to a comfortable 21-degrees Celsius in the winter and 25-degrees Celsius in the summer.
• Keep your refrigerator between 2-5 degrees Celsius and the freezer at –18 degrees Celsius. These temperatures keep food safe but any lower temperature wastes power.
• All appliances with electronic displays (such as microwaves and toaster ovens) should be unplugged when they are not in use.
• An energy audit could be completed at our place of work. One should be completed during the cold months and one should be completed in the warm months. This will let us know how much power we are using and will also tell us how much power we could be saving. One can find home energy audits on-line or one can hire a representative from their power company to come out and complete an energy audit.
• The windows in the offices should be checked for leaks and the caulking should be replaced where necessary.
• New computers and electronic equipment should be purchased. These new electronics should be "energy-star" rated.
• All computer monitors and CPUs should be set to shutdown or power off after an extended time of non-use.

Our future initiatives, which involve reducing emissions, follow.

• Power your office building by wind-power. Look further into this at Enmax’s Green energy options at https://www.enmax.com/Energy/Res/Go+Green/Greenmax.htm or at Bullfrog Power at http://www.bullfrogpower.com/
• Power your computers by wind-power. Offset all the carbon emissions created to power your computers by making them wind-powered. This would cost $39.00 per desktop computer or $16.00 per laptop for three years. This could be done through Pembina Institute's Wind Powered Computer Campaign. www.pembina.org/wind
• Do not idle your vehicles for extended periods of time. See the "Top three idling myths" at the Calgary Herald Website at http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/reallife/greenguide/index.html
• Allow access for your employees to their time sheets and schedules online to cut back on the unnecessary driving into the office.

• Water-saving flush kits can be installed in all toilets to save thousands of liters of water per year.
• An environmentally friendly cleaning service can be used. They can use "Green" cleaning products, recycled toilet paper and paper towel, and can also use biodegradable garbage bags. The garbage cans should be emptied so bags are not wasted. We could also switch to environmentally friendly dish soap in the kitchens and use non-toxic cleaning products. Eco-Max makes earth friendly cleaning supplies for larger buildings that requires bulk quantities www.eco-max.ca.
• An employee health and fitness program, which provides financial incentives, could be set up to encourage our employees to exercise. This financial assistance could also be used for such things as bike repairs.
• We could order organic and/or locally grown food for staff events.

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