Being Green
Green is the new black in the 21st century. Everywhere you look, people, organizations, and business are promoting a new way to be environmentally friendly. Whether it is as simple as changing your light bulbs or as complex as growing oil producing algae, being green has become an important part of our culture.
Eye care is no different. That is why we are proud to be a green office. We have taken several steps to help diminish our own ecological footprint. Some of the things we currently do include:
- We are a paperless office – this means that we do not keep paper records or charts; instead we use electronic medical records. We also do as much as we can electronically, whether it is sending invoices, verifying prescriptions, or even our marketing efforts. I am proud to say that in our first year of operating, we have only used 6 reams of printing paper in our office!
- We are big on recycling – every piece of paper we do use, gets recycled. Every bottle or can that comes into our office gets recycled. Every cardboard box gets recycled or reused. Even the plastic bags and shipping supplies get recycled or reused.
- We buy recycled – all of our paper products are a made from 90-100% recycled materials. This includes our paper towels, printing paper, paper bags, coffee cups, tissues and toilet paper.
- We insulated our ceiling – this reduces our heating and cooling loss, thereby reducing the inefficiency and electrical demand on our HVAC.
- We use Energy Star electronics – all of our computers and monitors, printers, scanner, coffee maker, refrigerator, and most of our pieces of optical equipment are Energy Star qualified.
There are many other ways in which we are environmentally friendly. A complete list can be found on our website.
We are also proud to announce that we are involved in the first ever Charleston Green Business Challenge. The Green Business Challenge is an effort to improve the environmental friendliness of businesses of any size in the Charleston area. It is one of five pilot programs being run across the country. The Challenge has a checklist of ways to be green that each participant fills out at the start of the program in order to have a baseline point level. There are then meetings and presentations throughout the year to help businesses implement new green programs and strategies. At the end of the year, the business repeats the checklist to determine their new point level. Awards and recognition are given to those who have shown the largest increases and implemented the most changes. The Challenge begins in August and we look forward to discovering and implementing new green ideas into our practice.
As always, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our environmental friendliness. If you have any ideas, please don’t hesitate to tell us!
