Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Green Options - Paper and Books: Tips from Xerox

As part of Eco-Libris' ongoing content partnership with Green Options Media, we feature a post that was originally published by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg on April 17th on Ecopreneurist. Today's post include tips from the VP of Environment, Health and Safety at Xerox on how to green your office when it comes to printing, paper use, and the energy costs.

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Most of my
discussion last week with Patty Calkins, VP of Environment, Health, and Safety at Xerox, focused on her company's efforts in the realm of sustainable business... so, not necessarily "ecopreneurial" material. As "document management" is a concern for any business owner, small or large, I made sure to address entrepreneurial issues with her. Specifically, I gave her a scenario: I'm the owner of a green start-up, and want to implement as many sustainable practices as possible while watching costs. How do I balance these priorities in terms of printing, paper use, and the energy costs that come with them?

It turns out (fortuitously ... I didn't know this up front) that Xerox was planning to release a series of tips on this topic this week in anticipation of Earth Day. That information was released today:

  • Cut paper use. Make two-sided prints and copies using the “duplex” function, print multiple images per page, and print only the quantity you need at the time you need it. Saving paper also saves energy: Environmental Protection Agency estimates say it takes 10 times more energy to manufacture a piece of paper than to create another print or copy.

  • Recycle the paper you use, and use recycled paper. Install bins in several office locations to make it easy to collect paper for recycling or for reuse as notepaper. And commit to purchasing recycled paper – it can meet the same performance specifications as non-recycled paper.

Earth Day options for green readers

Happy Earth Day, everyone! This is very exciting - around the world hundreds of millions of people will take part in green celebrations and events, discussing concerns about environmental issues and making a pledge to pursue a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle.

And what's happening on our field of green reading? we collected some of the options offered today for all the eco-conscious readers out there:

Breeni Books - Sabrina Williams of Breeni Books (http://breenibooks.blogspot.com/) is posting today a review and article by the author for the book 'Go Green: How to Build an Earth-Friendly Community' by Nancy H. Taylor. There's also going to be a giveaway so check it out!

Island Press - Visit Island Press’s Earth Day page: http://www.islandpress.org/earthday. Island Press are an environmental nonprofit dedicated to bringing vital environmental issues to the public. They just launched a new website complete with podcast interviews featuring several of our authors discussing topics that include green building, climate change, animal migrations, environmental health, oceans, and animal conservation. Some of the podcasts include interviews with Bill McKibben and Jay Inslee discussing global warming, and Callum Roberts discussing the fate of the world’s oceans.

Cody's Books - Cody's books (http://www.codysbooks.com) is the latest bookstore that joined our bookstore program, where bookstores offer their customers the option to plant a tree and get our sticker at the counter. We are very proud to partner with this great independent bookstore, which was opened in 1956 and became throughout the years a Berkeley institution.

Cody's Books will host on Thursday, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. an event with author James Howard Kunstler, who visits the future in his book WORLD MADE BY HAND.

In his previous book, The Long Emergency, celebrated social commentator James Howard Kunstler explored the age of globalization, the availability of cheap fossil fuels, the perils of climate change, and the coming trauma of our post-oil future. With WORLD MADE BY HAND, an astonishing work of speculative fiction, Kunstler makes an imaginative leap into the future, a few decades hence.

For the townspeople of Union Grove, New York, the future is not what they thought it would be. After the catastrophes converged - the end of oil, climate change, global pandemics, and resource wars - they are doing whatever they can to get by. Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy, and the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a president and he may be in Minneapolis now, but people aren't sure. A captivating, utterly realistic novel, WORLD MADE BY HAND takes speculative fiction beyond the apocalypse and shows what happens when life gets extremely local.

Store's address: 2201 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley CA 94704 (Phone: 510-559-9500)

Raincoast Books - our joint campaign with Raincoast books is still going on and you are welcome to check any of the 80 Canadian retailers who are participating and selling a wide range of environmentally themed books emblazoned with Eco-Libris stickers. The list of participating independent bookstores, located from cost-to-coast, is available on this page - http://raincoast.com/green/. Te bookstores have purchased over 4,500 specially stickered books and hence over 4,500 trees will be planted on behalf of Canadian readers.

Bookmooch - today is the last day of our green books promotion with BookMooch, and the book introduced today is 'Big Green Purse' of Diane MacEachern. You can find more details on the promotion and the nine green books that take part in it on bookmooch blog.
Swaptree - In honor of Earth Day this Tuesday, Swaptree.com (http://www.swaptree.com/), the website where you can trade the books, DVDs, CDs, and video games you have, for the ones you want, for free, will be donating $1 dollar for every trade made on Earth Day to The Sierra Club. So if getting a free book, DVD, video game or CD was not enough, now by signing up and doing a trade, you will also be donating to America’s oldest and largest environmental organization on Swaptree’s dime!

Whatever you choose to do today, have a green and wonderful Earth Day!
Raz @ Eco-Libris