Earlier this week, Professor Frank Convery, chairperson of Ireland’s sustainable development council, said that it was vitally important the consumers and businesses looked at ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

He suggested that focusing on air travel, hybrid cars and insulation could all help.

However, a spokesperson for Envirowise has now suggested that businesses could think about smaller scale issues and still reduce their carbon footprints.

“A simple starting point is paper. Consider that on average 60 to 80 per cent of office waste is paper,” she explained.

“Setting the office printer to print on both sides of the paper by default will automatically reduce the amount of paper used and thus reduce paper budgets.”

“It goes without saying that businesses will produce waste, but they should try to reduce it by following the principles of the ‘waste hierarchy framework’: eliminate, reduce, re-use, recycle and then dispose.”

Recently, a senior marketing advisor at Enterprise Ireland said that he believed that “green and ethical consumerism is high on the agenda” at the moment.

James Cooper

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