Environmentally Green SharePoint – (Includes Car Share Template)

It might seem to rain all day at the moment, but still we hear of the dangers of ‘Global Warming’ and the importance of being 'Green'. I must admit that I am not a great recycler - you can probably be arrested for making comments like that these days – although I am quite keen on saving the planet. I do reuse carrier bags from the weekly shop and I do use recycled toilet paper (purchased not my own), but I just never seem to find the time to really sort through my smelly rubbish. Although, I was a fan of the ‘Wombles’ when I was younger and I did win a coveted Blue Peter badge in a ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ competition. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention that I also received a signed photograph of the Blue Peter team which Valerie Singleton, Lesley Judd, John Noakes and Peter Purves signed as it might show my age. So how can we get ‘green’ with SharePoint? Well, several companies including Officetalk offer hosted SharePoint solutions which mean employees can access their vital work files wherever they are. It is also fairly straight-forward for companies to configure their own SharePoint Portal so they are available remotely or through a VPN. This is a ‘greener’ solution because it cuts down the need to travel in an ‘environmentally unfriendly’ car to the office every day. The lack of travelling would also gives us busy workers more time to spend with our hands in our rubbish bins separating all the plastics from aluminium containers. SharePoint can play a part in helping your organisation implement a number of ‘Green’ Business changes. The simple sharing of information in document libraries across all departments instead of leaving the laser printer and photocopier churning out sheets of paper and ozone can save a lot of trees. It seems that all companies are looking at ‘Sustainability’ to see how they can help the Planet and this is where the SharePoint Project Team can shine. SharePoint is brilliant for creating paperless forms system and also pretty good at developing surveys and questionnaires. SharePoint could be used to create ‘Environmentally Friendly’ Systems like ‘Recycling Unwanted Office Equipment to Employees’, ‘Green Suggestions’, ‘Information on Public Transport’, ‘Monitoring of Electricity Usage’ or ‘Car Share Scheme’. Whichever way you want your company to become Eco Friendly SharePoint can help. Officetalk Consultants will happily offer you advice, or design for you, any of these and we will even give you one of these systems to get you up and running. Don’t worry there is no running really involved you can save your energy for other things. As a starting point and to make me feel better I have created in nice green colours)’Car Share 2009’ Site template that can be installed straight to any MOSS or WSS 3.0 SharePoint system. It is purely a Site Template (STP) file. This template includes a system allowing employees to offer and setup Car Sharing programmes. It also has a survey included that can be used to gather information on how your employees get to work each day. All of this can be easily customised to meet your needs. To order this ‘Car Sharing 2009’ SharePoint Template for less than £60 just click the following link; Order Now Feel free now to view the videos of ‘The Good Life’ and ‘The Wombles’ and see the delights of Felicity Kendall or Madame Cholet depending on your personal preferences. Don’t forget to drop me an email to at andy.dale@office-talk.com with the subject title ‘The Good Life’.