5 ways of saving energy that you may not have thought about

If you’re interested in saving some energy in the office or at home, but don’t have the time to go out of your way searching for ways to save energy, follow these five simple tips for reducing energy consumption without having to make a great deal of effort. And remember, think about energy consumption when conducting tasks because it’s not always obvious where energy is being wasted.

1. What are you having for lunch?

If you’re buying/making lunch from local sources you’re helping reduce carbon footprints. Food that comes from foreign countries has to be shipped to your destination. It takes a lot of energy to do that. By simply changing your lunches to locally sourced foods you can help reduce global C02 emissions and maybe even improve your diet at the same time. Many nutritionists advocate diets based on seasonal consumption, since that is how the human digestive system has evolved to operate.

2. Stand-by and hibernate PC features

Do you frequently find yourself in the middle of something on your computer and in the need to leave it idol for a short period of time? For example, you’re in the middle of writing a document and you want to keep it up on your screen but you want to get a bite to eat and come back to find your work as it was when you left it? Try making proper use of stand-by features. You can save energy without wasting time reloading work-in-progress.

3. Unplug chargers that are not in use. Otherwise they will continue to draw power.

If you leave a phone charger or other similar style charger plugged in permanently you’re wasting energy 99% of the time, since these types of wall chargers drain energy even when the wall socket is turned off.

4. Switch to energy saving light bulbs

Energy saving ligh bulbs last longer than normal ligh bulbs and they use less energy. If you like keeping lights on in the office overnight for security reasons, use low energy usage dusk till dawn bulbs.

5. Don’t print things out

By not printing you’re saving the energy used to print the documents but more importantly you’re saving paper and ink. These items are manufactured. Anything that is manufactured uses energy (wastes energy in this case) to produce. Think about that whenever you purchase or use a consumable item such as ink or paper. You can reduce the amount you print by printing double sided.

Tip: Make your emails more eco-friendly, by asking that recipients consider the environment before printing.

Can you spot the energy wasters?

That’s it. Five simple steps you can take without any hassle that you may not have thought about. So remember, whenever you do something that involves energy usage, no-matter how far along the line that usage was, think about how you are impacting on the environment, both locally and internationally.

Spread the word and see if you can spot a plugged in charger that could be unplugged or an unused computer that could be on standby today. Or even a sandwich ingredient a friend of yours could swap for local produce to help reduce energy usage. Any other tips are welcome in the comments.