Our Sustainability Business Practices

Join us as we strive to help build a better environment. Some of our practices are listed below. What are you doing to help the environment? Let us know if you have any suggestions to help us further reduce our carbon footprint.


Energy Use

Lighting/HVAC
  • Use daylight rather than office lighting whenever feasible
  • Turn lights off when leaving office or bathroom
  • Switch from incandescent bulbs to CFL or LED
  • Use programmable timer on heat/air controls

Computers/Electronics

  • Shutdown printers, and other electronics over the weekend
  • As needed, replace old equipment with Energy Star qualified electronic products
  • Replace inefficient fax machine with internet online fax service (MetroFax)
  • Consider buying Renewable Energy Credits to “offset” office energy use (for more info: http://www.terrapass.com/)
  • Carbon calculator 

Meeting Space

  • When possible, use meeting space that is located in buildings that promote green building practices for chapter events

Consumables (Natural Resources)

Paper Usage

  • Use e-mail instead of paper correspondence
  • Do not print e-mails as general rule
  • Use clean one-sided scrap paper draft internal memos, printing and hard copies of documents
  • Reuse office paper to make scratch pads, rather than buying new
  • Create electronic forms, instead of paper
  • Increase use of digital storage to cut paper and reduce clutter
  • Buy high Post-Consumer Recycled Content (PCR) paper
  • Use electronic newsletters/announcements rather than printed copies
  • Electronically distribute Executive Committee meeting materials rather than printing and mailing

Recycling/Biodegradable Products

  • Avoid the use of Styrofoam products in favor of paper or other biodegradable food and beverage products
  • Participate in Tallahassee recycling program at office complex
  • Recycle printer ink cartridges
  • Purchase printer cartridges from a local Reusable Ink company
  • Recycle conference name badges (rather than use one-time only badges)

Transportations & Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Vehicle Rental

  • Standard policy to rent most gas-efficient car available
  • Carpooling when possible if more than one EC member is commuting to the same location

For questions or more information, please contact us.

*Adopted by the APA Florida Executive Committee on April 4, 2014