Can I have a green office, please?
Manidipa Mandal -
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 5:02 PM
So the day we began this blog, just as we published the very
first post, someone said, "knock on wood". We tried very hard, even travelling
some 10 feet in each direction, but our office yielded no wood, not even a spot
of Sunmica mimicry. The surfaces around me are mostly painted metal and
plastics.
Meanwhile, the lobby downstairs has recently been "greened" a few months
ago-with a veritable forest of plants. Around 135 containers, I counted (see
photo, below right). But I have my reservations on this doubtless
well-intentioned exercise. The plants are mostly deprived of light through the
day, and as they are inside, they need replacing, trimming, deadheading,
snipping and fertilizing them into a seeming of healthy foliage.
Yesterday, my colleagues and I were in a 10ft-by10ft room that
serves-variously-as conference space, as a studio for photo shoots and as an
occasional celebration venue for small triumphs (at work and in life). The room
has four banks of lights, nine fixtures in all... and rare is the colleague who
will take the time to figure out which switch connects to which fixture. Most
of us simply flick them all on, en masse, and let ourselves be dazzled.
(Thankfully these are mostly CFLs, though I'm not 100% certain of the largest
frosted-glass fixture above the table. With one thing and another, the room is
in use for at least half the day most days of the week, so halogens would have
been quite uncomfortable in terms of both heat levels and electricity bills,
plus cost of changing bulbs.)
Interestingly, the room also has a bank of large windows
along one wall-but people seem to find it easier/more pleasant to use the light
switches than to draw up the blinds (doing which floods this 16th floor room
with natural daylight).
Nor is this the only bright spot in our office. The main
corridor running from end to end (see photo, above left) has CFLs in
reflective fixtures every 2 feet or so; the workstations have a grid of
fluorescent tubes at intervals of every 3 ft or so. Most of them are on most of
the day.
Today, as I got into work from a walk in the park and went
to wash up, I wondered-only for the millionth time-why we insist on using those
rolls of paper towels every time we wash our hands. I mean, it's not quite
10am, and the bin is already full. I should ask Robert how many times a day he
ends up taking the paper trash out, but I haven't dared. It might make me tote
a hand towel from home, you see, saving the company the cost of maybe one giant
roll of paper towels each month. Some of my colleagues need more than one towel
to dry their hands each time (depends on personal hand washing methodologies, I
surmise). Now, on a day we're fully staffed, there's 56 women in the office, so
my colleague Sujata tells me. In other words, I'd guess that's approximately 56
rolls of extra-thick non-tearing paper towels the company is binning every
month. And that's just our office...
However, I'm reasonably sure installing that one of those rolling cloth towel
mechanisms would be cheaper. And yes, a quick check on the web confirms it is
also locally manufactured, in addition to the big-name brands (such as
Kimberley Clark, which exists in India as a Lever joint venture) popular across
public restrooms, offices and restaurants. Even from an aesthetic perspective,
I for one would appreciate not having the clutter of used wet paper towels
spilling all over the floor.
Similarly, a little less light might be nice! Now, I can assure you that the
Mint office is one of the airiest, best-lit offices I have had the pleasure
to work in (again, see photo above left). There's two almost
uninterrupted walls of windows flanking the length of it on either side. And in
an open-plan office, they actually provide light enough to work by for most of
us. I know because my end of the office, which usually has all of five people
in on the average Sunday, doesn't have the lights on most Sundays! And we don't
seem to miss them enough to turn them on until dusk.
And how about fewer plants in the reception and elevator lobbies that we spend
scarcely any time in? There the appeal is purely cosmetic-and as most of us
walk in and out with ears (and heads) bent to Blackberries, blind to our
surroundings, it is peripatetic at best. On the other hand, placed in the
actual work areas near the windows, they might actually have a positive effect
on air quality (and productivity) in a centrally air-conditioned office.
Another colleague, Manoj Madhavan, has this idea: He feels some of us (this
will have to be a designated task, to make it work) could easily go around the
office at the end of the morning shift (one largish band of us exit
approximately 6.30pm) and again at the end of the evening (the newspaper is put
to bed around 9.30pm most days), switching off all the monitors, as well as the
various switches under our desks. As things stand now, all of us shut down our
computers before we leave, many of us switch off our own, some attend to our
neighbours' monitors, but a few still get missed until morning. Plus,
underneath the desks, out of sight and hence out of mind, there are often
chargers and multi-socket strips plugged in 24-7, drawing off a phantom load.
Back in the cafeterias, we're well equipped with water dispensers, beverage
dispensers (tea, coffee, hot water, though we've recently cost-cut the soup), a
fridge and microwave ovens. We have cupboards stocked with real crockery,
plates and cup and glasses. Some of us bring our own and leave them here too.
So why is it that we haven't yet simply done away with the plastic cups, of which
you always need two because they're so thin? Some of us drink tea on the hour,
every hour; many of us don't finish the cooling cuppa and get a replacement
instead. Once more, I dare not attempt a count... but you get my drift.
So, what's the green scene in your office like? And do you have some
tried-and-tested ideas for us, while you're about it? Do write in. And do send
a link to this post to your HR department, while you're at it. I'm hoping mine
will read it anyway.