On the occasion of Environment Day, our team at Mercantile Exchange would like to highlight our commitment to preserving and fostering a sustainable healthy environment both in and out of the office. As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility, MEX has initiated and developed our “Go green” campaign for the past two years. Our initiatives for helping the environment include working with organizations to sponsor tree plantations, recycle all our office wastes and have future plans to use energy efficient data centers.

However, environment consideration starts with the individual and it is important to be aware of the footprints we leave on our planet that have long lasting and harmful effects for our future generations. We would therefore like to offer you some simple work place suggestions that would not only have a direct positive effect on the environment, but also help to cut down both energy and office supply costs.

1)      Use CFL bulbs instead of filament bulbs

CFL bulbs are more costly than normal filament bulbs. However, they use considerably less energy and have longer working hours. The initial cost might deter you, but you will immediately start noticing lower electric bills and lower replacement costs. The extra cost of CFL bulbs will be recuperated in less than a few months!

2)      Make use of natural sunlight

While thinking about your office space, avoid curtains that block out sunlight and encourage larger windows. Sunlight is free, and in most cases provides better lighting than bulbs during day time. In addition, research has also shown that sunlight improves workers mood considerably and thus leads to improved efficiency in the work place.

3)      Dim your computer screen and turn it off while you are not at your workstation

The computer monitor is the most power hungry component of your system. Increasing the brightness has detrimental effect to both your eyesight and your electricity bills! Turning off your monitor while you are away drastically reduces electricity consumption by your system. If possible, avoid bright colored backgrounds as your uses more electricity to produce bright colored pixels. A black background is ideal.

4)      Manage Cigarette disposal

Throwing cigarette buds at your leisure is an effective way of destroying both the aesthetics of your office environment as well as releasing harmful chemicals to the ground. Cigarettes contain more than 100 different chemicals and cigarette buds are not bio-degradable for years. Therefore over the years they release chemicals into the soil that affect plant growth and soil health.

5)      Recycle

Although recycling might be a hassle, it can save considerable costs to your organization. Not only should re-use of misprinted papers be encouraged, but disposal of paper wastes need to be carefully coordinated. New paper is produced from fresh tree pulp and a lot of trees across the globe are cut down for this purpose. Recycling paper produces less environmental damage and is cheaper too. Paper costs can be significantly reduced.

Although these suggestions are trivial, small steps like these can magnify into enormous benefits if followed by everyone. The need to be conscious and aware that our environment is fragile is paramount in our age of industry and wide-spread environmental deterioration. We hope you have a wonderful Environment Day and please spread the word for a cleaner and greener Nepal.