Fast Company points to this video by film-maker John Paget, winner of a Congress for New Urbanism competition on the connection between urbanism and the environment

I just received this from my non-political son-in-law who is a high-tech engineer: http://greenjobsnow.com/. It’s an attempt to bring together environmentalists, businesses, and unions to support creating “green jobs.” Maybe this is a step toward the creative class becoming self-aware and politically active?

Any change or innovation tends to beget unexpected consequences. One that Cisco Systems did not expect was that implementing mobile technologies alongside a novel workplace layout can significantly reduce a company’s paper usage.

When Cisco Systems created a new concept workplace for its general administrative division, they sought to improve collaboration, not reduce the amount of paper their printers churned through. But that’s exactly what happened.

As mentioned last week, Cisco knew that employees were only at their assigned office or cubicle 35% of the time – an indication that this workplace style wasn’t really suiting the work being done.

To design more appropriate space, the workplace resource team (WPR) interviewed and studied the 140 people involved to understand how they work. They concluded that people needed the flexibility and mobility to work wherever it made sense – collaborating in teams or pairs, or working individually in silent areas or arenas that invited more informal chats. A variety of workplaces were created and employees can move from one to the next as their work needs chance. Moveable furniture in open areas, rooms for head-down silent work, conference rooms with speaker phones and video conferencing were all made available.

As Mark Golan of Cisco explains:

In many cases, this results in a flexible environment that focuses on collaborative space with little assigned seating. Employees are given a broad choice of work spaces and the technology to do their jobs. They choose where they work, based on the requirements of the tasks on which they are working.

The Connected Workplace is primarily a wireless environment…It also has wired jacks for high-speed communications needs, such as PC backups and video streaming, and technology for audio- and video-conferencing, e-mail, instant messaging, and voicemail.

Armed with the latest mobile computing and telephone technology, most people gained mobility and flexibility in organizing their workdays, but lost their assigned spaces (although the majority reported liking the new arrangement and Cisco measurements suggest that productivity improved).

One consequence is that workers cannot let paper pile up on a desk. Instead they have to file it, recycle it or take it home. Having to do this with every piece of paper printed every day caused most employees to re-think their printing habits.

Golan again:

And if they are just going to throw it out, people start to question why they are printing a document in the first place. This leads to behaviors that eliminate paper – conducting meetings solely with projectors or collaborative software…. Not only does this reduce paper consumption, but information is usually easier to find when digitally stored- instead of searching through paper files.

Could the paperless office talked about decades ago when the personal computer first emerged actually be around the corner? Hands up, who works in a paperless office?

Even if the paperless office is more dream than reality, perhaps the workplace is gradually trending toward something that involves slaughtering far fewer trees than typically occurs today. I’m a bad culprit for printing more than I need and letting it pile up on my desk. However, if I had to file it formally or discard it at the end of each day, this would be a powerful incentive for changing my ways.

Can anyone report on strategies that have worked for your workplace to cut down significantly on paper waste?