Hundreds of people used CUPE’s Earth Day online eco-auditing tool to measure how green their workplace is. The results show progress on some workplace environmental issues and more work to do in other areas. But the main intent of the eco-audit was to get people to inspect the environmental record of their workplace, which was achieved.
The best scores were with cleaning products, paper use and waste/recycling. Many respondents reported they use legitimate green cleaning products at work, that recycled-content paper is widely used, and that workplaces have thorough waste diversion and recycling programs in place.
Transportation, climate change and meetings are areas where CUPE workplaces need to improve their environmental performance. These are relatively newer environmental workplace issues.
The eco-audit will stay live on the CUPE website here:
http://cupe.ca/forms/ecoaudit.php
For more information on making environmental improvements at work, check out these links:
Greener workplaces:
http://www.cupe.ca/environment/enviroguide
http://www.unison.org.uk/green/
http://www.biggreenswitch.co.uk/green_projects/green-at-work
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/at_work.asp
Greener meetings:
http://international.gc.ca/foreign_policy/ees/EnvironMan/system/greenop/greenmeeting/annex-en.asp
Greener workplace transportation:
http://www.resourceconservation.mb.ca/gci/TDM/TDMpdfs/Green%20Commute%20Handbook.pdf
cope 491