Our health, resources and the well being of future generations will depend on what we do every day, not just one day out of the year. It’s wonderful to see the growing number of events, actions and products that are environmentally aware… and it’s a great start.

For example, here are a few things we can do every day that will make an impact on our environment today and into the future:

• Consider buying items that are used often in bulk. This saves you buying additional packaging from small containers/packages as well as transportation costs from less shopping trips.
• Consider buying fewer packaged items, especially foods. Packaged foods are also processed, enriched, modified, often filled with artificial ingredients and far less healthy than whole foods. Fresh, ripe and organically grown fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and natural grains are considered the healthiest foods.
• Consider car pooling with co-workers.
• Consider telecommuting, working from home. If you can’t arrange that full time, try a few days a week. With the internet and advanced telecommunication today, most any type of work can be done remotely.
• Consider starting a home business.
• Consider switching to an online fax service and recycle your traditional fax machine. You can save a considerable amount of paper and electricity while sending and receiving your faxes by email or directly from any application on your computer. Much easier to organize as well.
• Get reusable shopping bags in place of paper or plastic when grocery shopping. Cities like San Francisco have already banned plastic bags and many stores including Walgreen’s, Fry’s, Whole Foods, and Safeway, among others already offer reusable bags, as well as being available online.
• Let off the gas pedal. It’s surprising how much fuel you can save by driving at a moderate speed rather than speeding away from a light and speeding ahead of others on the highway. Studies have shown that you get better gas mileage at around 60 than 70 miles an hour and by speeding up moderately. Often it’s amusing to watch drivers speed around me in frustration on surface streets just to meet them again at the next light knowing how much I save every much. I’ve literally added 5-6 extra miles per gallon by following several efficient strategies including these. Depending on your regular mileage, that can save you 1-2 gallons on every fill up… a big savings at today’s fuel prices.
• Recycle paper, metal and plastics with your local trash service program. If you have plastic bags from the grocery store, recycle them at your local Whole Foods, one of the only locations that recycle them (surprisingly).
• If you do business online (or plan to) use a web hosting service that is eco-friendly. There are hosting companies that are powered exclusively by wind and solar energy and socially progressive in their business operations to conserve energy.

Keep it green every day!

Additionally there’s the fax machine paper usage. Did you know that:

• 210 billion sheets of paper are consumed by faxing in US companies every year.
• 12,500 sheets of paper can be made from 1 tree
• 10,000 sheets of paper per year are used by a single US office worker
• 95% of this paper will eventually be thrown away, not recycled.
• 4 trees per year are cut down to meet the fax requirements of an average US company.
• 17 million trees per year are cut down to supply fax paper for the US as a whole

So what’s the solution?

Email to fax service.

An online fax service makes it easy to send a fax to email as well as receive a fax by email. You can send a fax online using online fax software, print any document from your computer directly to a fax or send a fax by email, attaching it from any number of document types including MS Word, PDF, Excel and many others.

Online fax service is available from many vendors. You can compare the costs, features and benefits of email fax services here to see which fax to email solution makes the most sense for your situation.

In addition to the energy and cost savings of using an fax to email service is the convenience of receiving all your fax documents by email. If you travel or aren’t at the office, you can still get your fax by email at any computer with an internet connection.

By using online fax software, you not only save energy, but you also save paper by handling all the communication electronically. With most fax to email software, you can modify or annotate the incoming faxes you receive and send them right out again without needing to print, scan and fax again. Most services send your faxes in PDF format and can be stored efficiently on your hard drive or backed up on CD/DVD’s if you require archives. No paper needed!

And there’s the time savings. No more running back and forth from the fax machine, waiting for paper jams or other faxes to be received, waiting in line and then waiting for faxes to be delivered to your desk. How much time to do you waste with the office fax machine?

I liberated myself from my fax machine over 6 years ago and have found using an email to fax service easy, convenient, cost and energy efficient and just plain cool. To find a place to recycle your old fax machines, visit the EPA web site for organizations in your area.

Here’s to turning your office green!