10 Green Travel Tips

Here are 10 simple green travel tips, which lets you enjoy your vacation while still contribute to going green.

1. Ask about the hotel’s or company’s green initiatives.
Book your travels with hotels or tour agencies who supports eco-friendly or sustainable tourism and activities.

• Do they recycle?
• Are they energy efficient?
• Do they address water conservation and waste management?
• Do they use local materials in their building?
• Do they use local ingredients in their dining menu?

2. Offset greenhouse gas emissions
If you have a choice, take trains over flying. Or if you must fly, try to book a non-stop flight.

3. Never Litter
Even if you see locals disposing of their rubbish without a care for the environment, you should not follow suit.

4. Choose where you stay
Pick a local bed & breakfast, or locally owned accommodation. It will benefit the local community.

5. Purchase and use local products whenever possible
Purchasing locally made souvenirs provides memories of your trip and will aid the local industry. However, be careful of products made from endangered animals, or products that are risky and destroys the local animals, flora or environment.

6. Conserve water
Use water sparingly to help conserve the water resources. Water is a sparse resource in many parts of the world, and you can help conserve this precious resource without undue hardship on your part.

7. Conserve electricity
Turn off lights and air-conditioning when you leave your room or when you don’t need it.

8. Do not feed local wildlife
They may look hungry but your interference will cause more harm than good. This can cause them to depend on humans for food, instead of foraging for food. Processed food are not part of their diet and can be harmful to animals.

9. Leave nothing but footprints
If you are on a nature tour, or visiting a conservation area, take with you only what you bring in. Do not left your rubbish behind or take some of the local flora with you. When you visit our islands, do not take pieces of the corals with you. If you are camping, use only biodegradable products to wash in.

10. Be part of Going Green
Help spread the word on green living, and let people know how conservation and green living does not mean a life without comfort. It’s about helping the environment recover.

5 Tips To Go Green At Work

Every business workplace or office, large or small, should be thinking of how to be cost effective and to reduce wastage. Especially if you are a business owner, keeping you overheads low is key to your business long term survival. So, go green at work in order to save money and the environment at the same time makes sound business sense. Many consumers today like to do business with companies that take a stand on the environment issue.

Most of us have been employees at one time or the other, and we have seen a lot of needless wastage at work. Sometimes it’s because we are not paying for it, or maybe because our boss doesn’t care either. But Knowing how to go green at work, or even better, leading the initiative to go green can help your career. We should all be doing it because it doesn’t take a lot of effort.

Here are 5 simple tips to start with.

1. The office printer is one appliance in the work place where you can start learning how to go green at work. Paper comes from trees. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, preventing it from accumulating in the atmosphere and adding to the global greenhouse effect. You can cut paper usage in half at a single stroke by simply printing on both sides of every sheet of paper. That’s one example of how to go green at work and save money too! Or better yet, only print when you have to. Used printer ink cartridges causes a strain on the environment too.

2. Business travel costs a huge fortune every year. Because time is often of the essence, we fly in aeroplanes or drive our cars to meetings. Business travel puts a enormous strain on the planet and your business expenses. The answer? Use video conferencing as much as possible. With a broadband Internet connection and a decent web cam, you can speak to anyone anywhere in the world. There’s a good choice of conferencing software available, and all at a mere fraction of jet travel.

3. Work from home. That answers the question of how to go green at work by cutting down on office expenses. You heat your home anyway, and as long as you have the necessary communications needed to do your job, then why not work from home! Many companies are introducing the concept of flexible hours, or contract work. Of course, jobs like this do not apply to all industries, but free-lancers have been working at home for ages. If you have the skill set, this is one option you can explore.

4. Invoice by email. This is one of the simplest ways of how to go green at work. As in tip number one, you save on paper, and a lot of paper too. Let your customers have the option to pay online of possible. The more you can do electronically that has traditionally been done with paper, the more the planet will benefit, and so will your bottom line.

5. Laptops are more energy efficient that desktop computers. It is the way they are designed to be. So, use laptops rather than desktop computers and monitors. A laptop will consume around 50 watts of energy while in use compared to a computer and monitor, which consumes around 270 watts of energy. Also, have all laptops set so that they go to sleep if not used for more than 15 minutes. Screensavers do not save money or power. On the contrary, the opposite happens, they use more! How to go green at work and save a lot of money? Switch off all desktop computers and laptops when not in use. If all businesses did this they would save enough to power the city of Chicago for one year!

How To Go Green And Save With 7 Simple Tips

As the world faces increasing global warming from harmful greenhouse gases pouring into the atmosphere, more people are making the decision to go green. The good news is that it is easy to do and cost effective too. You are helping our earth to recover, and saving money at the same time. It makes sense, money sense too.

So how about using these 7 simple tips to go green and save.

1. If you live in a cold climate, you can lower your winter heating by at least one degree. If you can stand to lower the temperature by two or three degrees, all the better. You use less energy and can still feel comfortable. You might think it’s easy for me to say so living in a warm climate, but I have spent years living in England, and all we did was to bundle up when it got cold. The water in our metal mugs would freeze overnight, that was how cold it was. If you live in a hot climate like I do, you can set the timer on your air-conditioning. That way the air-con shuts down just before dawn cool while your room is still cold. That’s a great start in how to go green.
2. Set your washing machine to wash clothes in cold water. Modern cleaning powders don’t need hot water, and heating the water is what consumes most of the energy that the washing machine uses. In Sabah, a hot and cold water washing machine is a luxury we don’t really need.
3. Don’t use the dryer to dry your clothes! Are you kidding, in a climate like Sabah, Malaysia. That’s not how to go green. It uses far too much energy and a dryer costs over RM 1,000. Hang your clothes out to dry. The sun and wind is great at drying clothes.
4. Energy Saving Bulbs or Compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs use 10% of the energy that a standard bulb needs, are brighter and they last 10 times longer. So, change your light bulbs. And if you want to know how to go green in a bigger way with lights, check out the new LED bulbs. They can be twice as efficient as the CFL bulbs.
5. Use less water. Check all faucets for leaks and fix any you find. Take a showers, instead of bath, and turn off the shower when you put on your shower cream. Consider getting a new toilet cistern that will use less than two gallons of water per flush. Standard cistern use some three and a half gallons. Saving water is also part of going green and saves you money too.
6. Walk rather than drive for very short trips or use a bicycle for moderate trips. Use the car only if you really have to. I know people who would drive to buy a soft drink when the store is only a block or two away. Besides, the price of gasoline or petrol has been going up. Hydrocarbon fuel is a none renewable source of energy, and you are doing the planet no favors by burning it. You can help cut down on air pollution. Do your part in creating a cleaner environment.
7. When you are driving, keep your speed down to you car’s optimal fuel consumption speed. Your car’s engine will be running at its most efficient at that speed burning the minimum amount of gas. Practice driving smoothly as well. Don’t accelerate fast from a standing start, and don’t brake hard. You save on fuel, engine maintenance and tyre wear. This is how to you can still go green even if you drive a car. Remember, regular maintenance helps your car run more efficiently, hence helping you save more.

Green Living Saves You Money

It is easy going green and it can save you money at the same time. Our planet is experiencing global warming,  and say what you will, I believe that our actions are the cause of this. If by some little action of ours can help out our earth, and save you money, isn’t it time to act?

Green Living makes sense if there are benefits to us. Cleaner air to breath, cutting down on electricity bills, better mileage from our car. This isn’t just a call to go green, it is a call to create a win-win situation for everyone. When you get right down to it, earth doesn’t need our help. We are doing this for ourselves, and for the countless generations yet to come. Choose to conserve our energy and resources today. Each of us have to stand up and say “We are not screwing this up, not on my watch, no way.”

There are many simple examples of going green. Start by saving energy.

Time to be unplugged
Did you know that cell phone charger that stays plugged in, the DVD player that waits for the occasional movie, and the TV that sits on standby all night, these are prime examples of how you are wasting electricity. For even if the items are not working, they are consuming energy! Going green can save you money - if you unplug them, that is.

Using A Water Filter
Another of the prime example of how going green saves you money is switching from bottled water to filtered tap water. The average family spends some RM2,400 a year on bottled water. And the worst part is that 90% of the plastic bottles are not recycled! For RM200 you could get a high quality staged water filter to make your tap water perfect and safe to drink.

Driving Smart
Here are some more examples of how green living saves you money. Reduce your driving speed to the engine’s optimum performance efficiency. That means, stop redlining your car engine, and you might want to forget about the turbo drive.  If you combine that with gentle driving on properly inflated tires, you will save money on petrol and tire wear, and help the planet too.

Use Pedal Power
You could always use a bicycle to travel short distances or you could simply walk for those short trips. You won’t be burning hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, warming the planet,  and you will get to exercise at the same time. Walking and cycling when you can are excellent examples of how going green saves you money.

Use Less Paper
I’m told some 65 million newspapers are printed every day in the US. Some 70% of them will not be recycled. In Sabah, it is a lot less than that. But still, what a waste of trees! You can do your bit to help, and read whatever news you want to read at the same time simply by either going online or sharing your newspapers.

Tips For Going Green

1. Conserve electricity by switching off or unplugging appliances when not in use.
2. Use filtered water from your own home.
3. Reduce your driving speed.
4. Walk to your destinations for those short trips.
5. Share your newspapers.

Do you want more example of how going green saves you money? They are all around you. Just look and you certainly will find them. People tend to follow leaders, so lead by your example.