LearnEnglish Professionals - Work Skills    

Greening your office        

Read: Making a greener office   
Listen: How green is your office?   

do you work in a 'green' office?    

You are going to read a leaflet about how to make your office greener. After reading you will have the chance to do a comprehension activity to check your understanding. You will also be able to do a grammar exercise to practise gerunds and infinitives and a vocabulary exercise that focuses on phrasal verbs.

Making a greener office

1. ..........

Do you recycle paper? Do you turn off your computer when it isn’t in use? What kind of light bulbs do you use? Be honest! Most people are starting to be environmentally conscious at home but at work we still have a long way to go. Follow a few of these tips and you’ll save energy, save money and at the same time contribute to saving our planet!

2. ..........

Print out hard copies of documents only when absolutely necessary.    
Look at documents on your computer instead of printing them out.    
Reuse paper that only has print on one side.    
Have a “paper box” in every office to make it easy for staff to recycle.   

3. ..........

Replace plastic glasses with real glasses.   
Replace paper towels in toilets with cloth towels or an air hand dryer.   
Re-use old bubble wrap, envelopes, wrapping paper, cardboard boxes.    

4. ..........

Give away items that you no longer use – but that are usable – to schools, churches or NGOs.   
Telephone the local council to get advice about throwing away waste products.   
Join a waste exchange programme where your unwanted items can go to a company who will use them.   

5. ..........

Buy products made from recycled materials - recycled stationary and office supplies such as paper and envelopes.   
Buy recycled paper that is unbleached and chlorine-free.   
Buy recycled toner for your printers.   
Buy rechargeable batteries for any appliances that you use in the office.   

6  ..........

Turn down the thermostat on your heating system by a couple of degrees – nobody will notice but the savings will mount up.     
Turn off the heating or air conditioning 30 minutes or an hour before everyone goes home.   
Plug all electrical office equipment onto a time switch that automatically turns off after office hours.   
Use the standby mode on all office equipment whenever possible – for example the energy saver button of photocopiers.   
When you need to buy office equipment, look for products that have energy saving devices.    

7  ..........

Organise a car pool system for staff living on the same work route.   
Encourage cycling by providing bike racks.   
Consider allowing staff to work from home once a week.   
Think about organizing a four-day working week of ten hours, rather than a five-day week of eight hours.   

Comprehension: Read the leaflet quickly and click here to match each heading with its section.

Vocabulary:  Click here to complete the sentences using a preposition from the box.

Grammar – Gerunds & infinitives:  Click here to choose the correct word or words in each sentence.

For more practice on gerunds and infinitives click here to see our Grammar Movies.

DCSIMG

Text Only Options

• Change the current font size: larger | default | smaller
• Current color mode is Black on White, other available modes: Yellow on Black | Black on Cream
• Show textual links as buttons
• Do not move navbars
• Do not alert me when leaving text-mode
• Open not handled documents directly
• Hide Text Only Options

Open the original version of this page.