Workers could be greener, survey reveals

26 February 2010

A recent survey revealed one in three office workers are failing to drive forward green initiatives in the workplace.

The findings, conducted by office products manufacturers Avery, comes ahead of the second annual Green Office Week which takes place between 26–30 April.

The week aims to raise awareness among office workers on how they can make a difference to the environment by making changes in the workplace.

Some of the daily themes of the week will include Make a Start Monday, Choose Right Tuesday, Waste Not Wednesday, Think Ahead Thursday, and Feel Good Friday.

The research from the Green Office Week 2010 survey, which was carried out among 4,000 consumers working across the UK in January, found one third of all UK offices still do not have any recycling facilities, and less than a quarter has a full environmental policy in place.

The report also uncovered that two third of office workers were unaware that their organisation had any environmental targets in place and 47% even said that they are less conscious of reducing power consumption because they aren’t the ones paying the bills.

According to the research, companies in Oxford and Edinburgh are most likely to have the facilities in place for workers to recycle with, while Belfast was the least likely to have recycling facilities at work.

Office workers can find out more on the Green Office Week website where free resources can be downloaded to help make workplaces greener.