Best of the Rest: Innovative Ideas

While not every company that entered could be named a winner, we were impressed with some of the sustainable practices in place at numerous nominees. Some of those that are worth mentioning:

Materials conservation

Waco Title’s use of check scanners, check lumping, dual monitors and PDFCreator has helped it transition toward a “paperless” office in the traditionally paper-heavy business of real estate closings.

Check scanners remove the need for daily bank deposit runs, which save the company in productivity, gas, ink and paper. Annual savings are around 556 gallons of gas and $3,000 in ink and paper. The use of dual monitors has stopped the practice of printing for purposes of data entry and check lumping reduced the total number of checks cut annually by 20,000, saving $5,000 in related costs.

Total material costs for the company rose just 3 percent in the first quarter of 2008 despite a 28 percent increase in closings, and the company made 64,000 fewer copies during that time.

Employee behavior

Smiling Jack’s Fresh Food owner Jack Stewart will pay his employees up $1 more per hour if they don’t drive to work, and only two still do. Hanesbrands Inc. took space in Bentonville Plaza and created a recycling program that all building tenants may use. Hanesbrands added a locker room facility to encourage walking/biking to work and is near enough to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for its employees to walk over.

Maloney Marketing Group allows a four-day workweek to reduce commuting and, like many others, has installed water systems to discourage the use of bottled water.

Recycling

Pinnacle Hills Executive Office Suites has reduced its janitorial costs by half thanks to instituting a recycling program. It uses recycled products in its printers, break rooms and restrooms while eliminating disposable cups, silverware and plates in favor of a dishwasher that only runs when full.

Site preservation

The Arkansas Yoga Center in Fayetteville has more than 20 trees on site, 10 of which were preserved during construction. The building was oriented to make the most of natural light and the deciduous trees provide shade in summer while allowing direct light for heating in winter.

Resource Design in Rogers has renovated two spaces since 1992, preserving original looks in downtown each time while saving on material costs.

(See more of the greenest offices in Northwest Arkansas by clicking here.)