We love being green, whether it’s home or at the office. But what if your office in IN your home? (Or your home is your office?) Our guest blogger, Joel Arnold of inkpal.com, gives us some tips for making your home work space more sustainable.

Working from home means you have to carry most of your own costs but also means that you have a great deal of control over your own decisions. If you want to make your workplace more environmentally friendly, it doesn’t involve red tape and fighting with your boss over every purchase. Having a green office can be as simple as implementing a few basic decisions. If you’re ready to make your home office more environmentally friendly, where should you start?

The first problem to attack is paper and printing. According to the EPA, the average office worker generates 1.5 pounds of waste paper every day. That works out to around 400 pounds per person, per year—overwhelming waste.

What if you tried to limit (or even eliminate) printing altogether? One obvious advantage of working from home is that face-to-face meetings and physical handouts aren’t necessary. If you invest in a tablet and a simple document scanner, you will probably find that going paperless gives you a big productivity boost, in addition to saving on paper and printing costs. You may even be able to get rid of your printer altogether by outsourcing jobs like creating paper ads or promotional materials.

Make sure to only print pages when necessary. For what you DO need to print, start by buying recycled paper, or implement other methods to reduce paper waste. For documents you use internally, try printing on both sides of the page or using the opposite side of old documents.

An even greater load on the environment comes from ink and ink cartridges. Printing in draft mode can save a significant amount of ink and saves you money (on top of being green). One of the easiest and most effective steps you can take is recycling ink cartridges. Most companies will recycle cartridges for free and may even pay for shipping. In additional, print supply companies will even give you a significant discount on your next purchase as an incentive to recycle.

It’s also essential to recycle office supplies, such as printer ink and toner, because these products contribute to a growing electronic waste problem. As e-waste, this only makes disposal even more costly on the environment. The total weight of ink cartridges thrown away in a single year is equal to more than 60,000 Ford Explorers, and the average toner cartridge will take more than 500 years to decay. Of course, the more used ink cartridges that are recycled instead of thrown away, the fewer need to be manufactured every year. If you want to help, all you need to do is figure out where to recycle printer ink.

Another area home offices can reduce their impact on the environment is battery consumption. Batteries are ultimately used in several devices, and disposable batteries have a worse impact on the environment than rechargeables. If cutting long term costs on batteries isn’t a concern to you, then at least keep mother nature in mind by simply setting up a bin somewhere to collect depleted disposables. Once you collect enough, find a location that will recycle them and drop off batches regularly. Rechargeable batteries will last several years before needing to be replaced; which means that you will save time, money, and the environment at the same time!

Finally, consider investing in a few solar panels to cover the energy your home office uses. As the cost for renewable energy sources continues to fall, it is now quite easy to install a system that will more than cover the electricity you use for your business. Though the initial costs seem high, these investments generally pay for themselves within a few years. Additionally, using solar panels allow you to advertise yourself as a zero emissions business. While serving as a good example to the community, your customers can feel better about supporting your business, establishing one more point of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It’s time to make your home office green. What sustainable ideas do you have for your home office?

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