The Boss of You

The job market here in Vancouver is really tight right now, meaning: it’s an employees market. Now that Lauren and I are officially off the market, as it were, and instead in search of talented lovely folks to work for us, that’s a bit stressful sometimes. That said, we’ve been really lucky in attracting wonderful folks to work for us. On this morning’s news there was a story related to a new study (sorry I can’t find a link to it, so you’ll have to trust me) that shows that employees in Canada (I’m sure it was Canada, but it was early so forgive me if I’m wrong) value the environmental policies of their workplace when choosing a job or rating job satisfaction.

As a person I’m pretty darned environmentally minded and as a boss it’s something that naturally comes to mind in so much as it is an extension of my own habits, but the story got me thinking that we’ve never really formalized an eco-policy, nor do we speak about it specifically. Now, we’re a small office (5 people) so a formal policy may not be in order, but I would really love to take some time to think about more ways we could be reducing our impact.

Off the top of my head, here’s a list of the things we do currently at Raised Eyebrow related to the environment. I’d love to hear what things you do in your own workplace/your company that might go into an environmental workplace policy.

• Recylcing and use of scrap paper for double sided printing;
• Keep containers in the office to take to local lunch joints to use in place of take-away containers;
• Ubiquitous thermal coffee mugs;
• Employee bus passes are a staff benefit;
• As our primary sales/meeting person, I have a membership in a local Car Coop, which is primarily used for any meetings not easily accessed by foot or bus;
• We order most of our stationery from a lovely local business that specializes in green office supplies;
• I could make a crack about how the building never turns the heat on until well into the damp/cold rainy season, but really that’s a pain in the butt, not a feature.

So how about you? Any brilliant/fun eco-friendly things you do in your workplace that we can consider?