Brits keen to go green

WORKERS in the UK believe that their companies could be doing much more towards making their workplaces more eco friendly. They also think staff should bebetter informed about environmental work practices.

According to a survey, 89 per cent of company-employed workers reckonthat their firm didn’t recycle enough, even though 55 per cent of British businesses support a “print less” policy, 20 per cent more than the international average.

Seventy-three per cent of Brits also said that they wanted their company to make them more aware of environmental issues, probably an indication of how mind numbingly boring their actual jobs are, that they would rather spend an afternoon learning about how to recycle aluminum cans and how to build a compost heap in the staff room.

The survey sponsored by Kyocera Mita, claims that , which asked how much employees felt environmental issues affected their personal working habits and their companies’ actions, was carried out by the IFAK Institut and polled 627 people spanning the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Spain. According to Kyocera Mita, the Brits seem to care statistically quite a bit more than their European brethren about their work’s eco woes, by an astonishing 20 per cent margin.

Having said that, the report does go on to say that approximately 90 per cent of all those polled said they had done at least one thing to do their bit for the environment whilst at work (bunking off early to save energy?). 55 per cent said that they switched off equipment at night, 52 per cent said they used electronic documents instead of paper ones, 43 per cent said they preferred duplex photocopying and printing and 34 per cent reckoned they had cut back on printing out documents that they didn’t need.

But there is still almost 10 per cent of evil anti-green people who admit that they didn’t even do one of the above. Boo-hiss.

When asked why they thought companies made an effort to go eco, most employee s were astute enough to realise that it was a cost-cutting measure. Another cynical 21 per cent (probably INQ readers), reckoned that firms only waxed lyrical about green-ness to boost their image and seem trendy and cool, whilst a naïve 25 per cent felt that the company really, truly, honestly wanted to save the environment. Awww, bless. They’re probably the same lot who believe that they’ll be getting that long awaited promotion and pay rise next year too. µ