I have been part of a green office for 3 years now and we're getting more and more focused on reducing our solid waste and finding ways to be energy efficient.

As computer people (web developers and web designers), my partner and I have to do the computer thing --- so to some extent we are unable to reduce the waste created by our electricity usage and the materials needed to create our multiple MacBooks. However, we are doing our best to be hypersensitive to other ways of reducing our footprint:

1) Paper
We no longer have a printer: we send PDFs instead. We also have digital scans of commonly-used items and we send documents via e-mail with an electronic signature. My biggest complaint with people who are still using paper is that storage and retrieval is a major problem (look at how our returning U. S. veterans have to deal with the paper trail and are being denied disability benefits if they can't prove something --- with electronic data retrieval, this problem goes away). A close second complaint is the sheer amount of wood pulp that has to go into printing paper.

We're dealing more and more with electronic versions: we highly recommend using e-mailed documents, we handle items over fax-by-email, and we're moving towards online payments instead of check payments.

We use Earth Class Mail for a snail mail postal box, but we get digital scans of all the mail and decide whether to shred, store, recycle, or physically send the mail. I'd love to get all my mail digitally, such as online payments instead of checks and e-notifications instead of statements.

2) Disposables
There are three pieces here: one is the ubiquitous single-use coffee cup, the second is the plastic water bottle, and the other is the plastic utensil. All of those have to go. We're bringing our own steel or ceramic mug to the coffee house, and we carry Nalgene 32 oz. water bottles for our beverages. We're stashing metal spoons and forks in the car for when we go somewhere, and we turn down plastic versions at parties or events. When we host our own events, we go for the corn-based or sugarcane-based alternative (Worldcentric http://www.worldcentric.com and Styrophobia http://www.styrophobia.com are our suppliers).

3) Telecommuting
The high cost of meeting in person can be ameliorated by using asynchronous communication (e-mail exchange) as well as many collaborative communication tools. I have met physically with only one client in the last two and a half years --- most of my business is conducted over the phone, e-mail, Skype, and web-based demonstration tools (including screencasts).

Why force someone to deal with child care, get in their car or get on the bus/train, to come to an in-person meeting? Why force people to join something in real time when they can get a copy of the conference recording, a podcast of the event, or a slideshow of relevant materials?

I believe we'll see more trends in asynchronous work (checkin via mobile applications, less dependence on in-person meetings, more dependence on multi-location collaboration) for the digital and service types of industries.

What has been your experience with your own office or workplace?