More than three billion disposable coffee cups are produced every year in Australia, with the majority ending up in landfill.
Lighting upgrades can be relatively straightforward and offer rapid returns on investment, ongoing operational savings, and reduced maintenance.
Computers and office equipment such as printers and photocopiers can contribute between 30 and 55 per cent of office energy use.
The CitySwitch Green Office program approaches health and wellness in the office by looking at how the built elements of an office detract or contribute to human health, wellbeing, and productivity, and what we can do to thrive in our offices.
For tenants to improve Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC)
Office greening or biophilic design can be achieved by various means including indoor plants, views of flora and fauna (both live and in pictures), green walls and roof top gardens.
Manage waste using the waste hierarchy: avoidance is most preferable, then re-use, recyclability, recovery, then lastly disposal.
Even though installing solar PV or battery storage is often beyond the control of tenants, there are still ways tenants can control the type of energy consumed in their office.
A number of efficiency measures rely on staff changing their habits and behaviours at work.
Psaros is the first mid-tier property developer in Western Australia to operate a carbon neutral head office. The tenancy consumes less than 50 per cent of the energy used by a typical 2.5 star NABERS Energy-rated tenancy and due to their Carbon Neutral certification, they have off set a total of 221 tonnes of CO2-e over two years.
Exergy are the first CitySwitch signatory to achieve a 6 Star NABERS rating without Green Power. Exergy focussed on getting the simple things right, including laptops for staff and greater use of the cloud, zoned lighting and occupancy sensors, and energy monitoring that sends an alert when usage is higher than usual.
ACORPP involved staff in selecting a new office and save over a thousand dollars a year in electricity by choosing a space with natural light, providing laptops, and timers on boardroom air conditioning. ACORPP also chose furniture and fitout materials for certified low environmental impact, recycled content and recyclability.
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