Saving energy at work is a rather unenthusiastically viewed topic. Staff will often never see or reap the benefits of their eco, money saving, efforts and employers struggle to motivate or educate people towards the benefits of saving energy at work.
We think the figures speak for themselves. To put it into figures that everyone understands, money, it is impressive how much little things, in large numbers and over time can save.
What should you be doing?
1. Turn off your TV’s instead of leaving them on standby
Photo by CCharmon on Flickr under CC
If anything, standby electronics are almost the poster boy of saving energy. It is such a simple task that saps so much of your energy bill.
Did you know: If you had just 3 TV screens in your office that you started to turn off instead of on standby, you can save £84 on your energy bill per year per TV. That’s the same cost as an average kettle being put on the boil 10 times a day for 6 months. That’s a lot of brews.
2. Insulate the office
Install some blinds in your office and shut them at night, to keep the air temperature warmer. This can work both ways, too. If it’s meant to be a sunny day, and your office is known to be a bit of a sweatbox – shut your blinds to block the heat from the sun.
Make sure that whenever the heating is on, that door and windows are all shut. Keep the heat exactly where you want it.
Double glazing can be a god-send when it comes to trapping the heat in and saving on those energy bills, too.
Photo by Andy Melton on Flickr under CC
3. Turn off the lights/Get energy efficient bulbs
Photo by Johan Hansson on Flickr under CC
Turning off the lights is something we all think we do, just because we turn the lights off at the end of the day, but you can do so much more. Just come out a meeting room, and the next meeting is a few hours off? Flick the lights off. It takes seconds.
You can reduce your lighting costs even more by installing motion sensors in certain rooms like washrooms as well as energy efficient bulbs.
Did you know: You can reduce lighting costs from £3/m² to £1/m² by getting energy efficient bulbs, keeping fittings clean, and turning lights off when you leave a room. £2 isn’t much, you might say?
To put it in perspective: Google’s head office has 185806m² of floor space – that’s a potential saving of £371,612.00 or $593,167. Oh and also, Google has 70 offices.
4. Fill your dishwasher!
Dishwashers take a lot of energy, and they’re on every day in a busy office. By not filling it up completely before you use it, you’re essentially doubling your dishwasher usage. Take the time to stack the dishwasher efficiently to get the most out of each wash. Alternatively, do all your washing up sparingly, using just hot enough water.
Did you know: The carbon footprint of doing the dishes?
Almost zero CO2e: by hand in cold water (but the plates aren’t clean)
540g CO2e: by hand, using water sparingly and not too hot
770g CO2e: in a dishwasher at 55°C
990g CO2e: in a dishwasher at 65°C
8000g CO2e: by hand, with extravagant use of water
Photo by Kevin Dooley on Flickr under CC
5. Turn your monitor and computer off
Whether it’s down to a slow computer, rushing to get home or just out of simplicity, a lot of people don’t turn off their computers in the week, and leave them on standby over the weekend – this saps a lot of energy
According to Warwick University, “each computer (with flat screen monitor) that’s left on standby overnight and at weekends wastes £20 a year“. When you consider that on a company-wide scale, that’s a lot of money!
Did you know: Turning a computer off instead of standby saves £17 a year, and a LCD monitor saves £3 a year. Taking an office of our size as an example, we have close to 50 computers with 2 LCD screens each – therefore a medium sized office would save around £1,100 a year. It adds up.
6. Only boil what you need in the kettle
You may be excited that you’ve just halved the yearly cost of boiling a kettle just by turning some TV’s off, but always be careful not to overfill the kettle.
A lot of the time, the scale on the side of a kettle is useless, as people don’t know how much different cups can take. If you happen to have identical branded mugs in your office, work out how much water they can hold and put it up on the wall behind the kettle.
This way, people can put in the exact right amount of water for every cuppa.
7. Install water saving devices in your washroom
You’re flushing a lot of money down the drain by not installing water saving devices.
Did you know: You can save around 15 litres and 3.75p per toilet per day with a water saving device. That’s enough to fill a hot tub 15 times a year.
Photo by Maximus_W on Flickr under CC
8. Ensure you turn your taps off
Not only does leaving the taps on put the office at risk to flooding, but it also burns a huge hole in your wallet. Fitting auto-turn-off taps can save you a fortune in the long run.
Did you know: If you leave a tap running on full, it wastes 6 litres per minute. Accidentally leaving a tap on for 4 minutes wastes enough water to provide 5 people’s 8 glasses per day
Photo by Petras Gagilas on Flickr under CC
If you would like to see how we worked out any of our ‘Did you know’ statistics, please get in touch. We’d be happy to share our calculations, for your own workings out.