Save the Environment (AND some money!)

Environmental issues have increasingly been at the forefront of political, economic, personal and corporate discussions.  However, if you're like me, it's hard to find affordable, realistic ways to be more environmentally sustainable.  I want to buy sustainable fashion, convert to more efficient appliances and participate in sustainable agriculture by growing my own foods, but as a college student I have to be careful with my money, I typically don't own the building I live in, and apartments and dorm rooms don't exactly lend themselves to growing vine-ripe tomatoes.

However, I recently read this book that I really appreciated. It's called New Day Revolution and was a quick read that had a lot of simple tips I plan to use (and no, no one's paying me to say good things about it :-). I just really enjoyed it and found it helpful--plus it's only $5). Here are some of my favorites:

• Shorten your shower by 60 seconds each day to save 5 gallons of water a day and more than 1,825 gallons a year (on top of $11 in utility bills)
• Ensuring that your tires are fully inflated saves on precious fuel
• Roll down your windows when driving in traffic and turn off the air conditioning to save fuel; on the highway do the opposite--having your windows open on the highway reduces gas mileage up to 10 percent
• Take your roof rack off when you're not using it (the rack adds drag and hurts your fuel efficiency)
• Go inside instead of going through the drive thru: this will reduce CO2 emissions. Also, pulling forward in a parking space so you don't have to back out saves gas.
• Buy organic, fair trade coffee: this ensure that growers are being paid a fair wage and organic coffee is more sustainably produced and better for the environment than other types
• Use your own mug instead of a disposable paper cup and you'll save a tree all by yourself
• Eat a cold meal. Doing so will "save about $1 and keep two pounds of coal in the ground." Turning one meal that you would normally eat meat at into a meatless meal will also save energy.
• Unplug your charger when it's not in use to save $30 a year in electricity costs. (The "average household uses 450 pounds of coal a year just to keep DVD players and computers plugged in").
• Switch your five most used light fixtures to energy saving incandescent bulbs
• Don't flush your medicine: It's bad for the environment. On the other hand, throwing old medications away can be dangerous as well. Instead, take your out-of-date bottles to a local pharmacy for disposal.
• Recycle batteries (which can burst open) and used printer cartridges--or, refill the printer cartridges to save money!

Hope these helped and you heard something new! If you have tips of your own please post a comment below--I'm always looking for good ideas.

For ways Optimum tries to take care of the environment, click here or copy and paste this URL into your web browser: http://www.optimumcompanies.com/ProEnvironmentPolicy.html

Personal Accountability

Personal accountability is one of the core values at Optimum Companies. That is why our team leaders are all required to read "QBQ" and "Flipping the Switch", books written by author John G. Miller.

QBQ stands for "Question Behind the Question" and is built on the observation that our first reactions are often negative, bringing to mind Incorrect Questions (IQs). But if in each moment of decision we can instead discipline our thoughts to look behind those initial questions and ask better ones (QBQs), the questions themselves will lead us to better results.

Here are some examples of IQ or "incorrect questions" - how often have you heard these before?

“When is that department going to do its job?”
“Why don’t they communicate better?”
“Who dropped the ball?”
“Why do we have to go through all this change?”
“When is someone going to train me?”

These questions put the blame on someone else and are not constructive. QBQ questions are centered around taking personal accountability. Here are a few examples of QBQ questions:

“What can I do to contribute?”
“How can I help solve the problem?”
"How can I communicate better?"

Miller’s book is a quick read that is full of practical methods for putting personal accountability into daily actions. You can tell this difference when you are working with someone from both branches of Optimum Companies, Optimum System Products and Optimum Print Solutions.