Turning the office green is an important and often underestimated step in cleaning up the atmosphere and the earth. According to a Time Magazine article, one single office worker can use a quarter ton of materials in one year. In addition, heating, cooling, and powering offices is responsible for nearly 40% of CO2 emissions in the U.S. and uses more than 70% of total electricity consumption. So where does the wannabe green office turn to clean up its act? Solar power.

Solar power has become the savior for large corporate offices. From Google to Wal-Mart the trend is catching on fast. And why shouldn’t it? When you think about it, it’s a convenient marriage. Here you have buildings that are usually incredibly large and often much taller than any building in the vicinity, with large flat roofs. It’s a solar array waiting to happen.

And it’s not just private corporations leading the way. Many schools and government offices are installing solar panels to pull their offices off the heavily burdened power grid.

Of course, on such a large scale, solar is just a piece, albeit a large one, of going green in the office. But office electricity usage is gargantuan and solar power promises to alleviate that burden on our cities and our earth.

Posted on May 29th in Going Solar by Dan.