More and more people are foregoing land lines at home because cell phones are just as easy to use and it doesn’t make sense to pay for both. At the office, however, you really need a land line. Yes, there are green phones out there. Here are some of the top-selling green phones, according to Amazon:

Panasonic Dect 6.0 Series 3 Handset Cordless Phone System with Answering System (KX-TG1033S)
Vtech CS5111-2 Two Handset Cordless Phone System with Caller ID
Panasonic Integrated Business Phone (KX-TS105B)
Panasonic KX-TS4300B 4-Line Integrated Phone System expandable up to 16 stations with Speakerphone

What makes these phones green? They use …read more

Subway has recently announced that they are going green with their lighting. Green light bulbs are one of the easiest ways to go green AND save money, so it is a wonder that more businesses aren’t doing this!
According to reports, the Subway restaurant chain will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by – get this – THREE MILLION POUNDS just by replacing ONE incandescent light bulb with a CFL bulb in each store. That’s the same as removing 275 cars from the road for an entire year.
For more food industry news, check out Daily Blender, including this past articles on Subway.
Should …read more

Recently, Visa announced a partnership with Repay International to help businesses around the world go green. This card is similar to the recent consumer card launched earlier this year, so if you’re looking for a card to use with your business, consider this new carbon offset concept.
When you make a purchase using this card, it is grouped into one of 24 categories. You can then log onto a special cardholder website to see the carbon emissions per products/services bought. Your purchases are then offset with investments in forestry, renewables, energy efficiency, and carbon capture projects.
You can read more …read more

Many offices have moved from sending paper memos to sending company-wide emails. While this is undoubtedly a greener option, that begs the question: Exactly how green is it?
When you send an email, it isn’t using paper products, but it is using energy. It might not take much energy to send a single email, but think of all of the emails you send and receive in a year – hundreds, thousands, millions of emails. Even the ocean is made up for drops of water.
I’m not trying to discourage you from sending emails. This is still one of the greenest communication …read more

When purchasing coffee for your office, choosing all-natural, sustainable, free-trade, organic beans is definitely better than buying the super-sized, generic can of brew.
Inarguably, though, it can get a little expensive to purchase green coffee. One reader emailed me what I thought was a great tip:
“At our office, everyone who drinks coffee chips in and we take turns buying the better green coffee. We trade off once a week, so everyone only has to buy about ten pots of coffee every three months. If we need more than two pots in the morning, we have a can of generic that …read more

According to Freshëns, a snack-food company based in Atlantic Georgia, they’re “making a difference one cup at a time.” Today, the company announced that starting this month, they’d be offering something other than frozen yogurt and smoothies: The ecotainer Paper Cold Cup.
Freshëns’ cold cups are made using sustainably-grown, renewable resources, but better yet, the liquid-resistant material used to coat the cups can be consumed by microbes, meaning that you can compost these cups.
“Premiering the first compostable and fully renewable cold cup is an honor for us,” said Freshëns Quality Brands President John Stern. “Though the cup does …read more

Early this month, I held a contest giving away a set of “green” business cards. I ordered some for myself as well, and today, both myself and the contest winner received our orders.
One word: Wow.
Maybe my expectations were set low, but the business cards BizCard.com sent me are gorgeous. The best part? They’re green!
The business cards I ordered were “slims.” They’re a little smaller than regular business cards, using 25% less paper, but they still look very professional. Depending on the cards you order, they’re also 30% – 100% recycled paper…but you’d never know it. In addition, keep …read more

Earlier this month, my fellow b5media bloggers at Tree Hugging Family talked about organic and green lunch bag/box options. They gave readers some great options here and here, but if you’re not in school anymore, you might want a more sophisticated option than what they showed, which are mostly for kids(although I was totally a fan of Bento Box Set they showed). Here are some adult-friendly green lunch bag options:

Built NY Gourmet Getaway Lunch Tote

JanSport Lunch Break Lunch Box

Vera Bradley Out To Lunch New Colors

Elle Essentials – Sadie Lunch Bag – Brown
I …read more

After several years of planning, Bizcard.com was launched in 2007 to provide business owners with high-end printed supplies, like business cards, promotional postcards, and other specialty printed products. Their commitment to quality, however, isn’t the only reason you should order from BizCard.com – they’re also committed to going green.
As part of their social responsibility promise, Bizcard is making the following efforts to go green:

Buying paper from Forest Stewardship Council certified sources and mills with the Green Seal certification
Producing paper products from 30 – 100% recycled paper
Using low VOC solvents an sequence printing to save ink
Recycling 100% of all paper …read more

I just had a real “well duh” moment. In fact, I think a lot of the world just has a “well duh” moment.
UK food retailer Sainsbury’s has won the European Retail Solutions Best Green IT Initiative Award 2008 for using simultaneous two-sided thermal receipt printers from NCR Corporation in its store checkouts. Read more here.

Sainsbury reports that they use 40% less paper with their new printers, saving 502,000 rolls of paper every year, and they haven’t even implemented the new printers into all of their stores – they’re only in half of them. That means that this ONE …read more