As it's World Environment Day on the 5th of June we've compiled a handy list of reminders on how to save energy, and be a little 'greener'!

World Environment Day: Energy Saving Tips

Turn out the lights

Simply turning out the lights when a room is vacant is a great way to save energy. Lighting is not something we often think about but actually it can use quite a lot of energy, more than you'd expect. Switching to LED lighting equipment can also save money because it's hugely more efficient than conventional bulbs, and lasts longer than conventional light fittings.

Shut down, turn off

Turning your computer off overnight may seem like common sense, however most people just log off. Go greener and actually shut your computer down before you leave the office, as well as turning off all the printers and displays. All these little changes can start to add up to substantial savings over the year.

Update your equipment

In recent years, everything from your fridge freezer to your vacuum has been made more energy efficient. Aging appliances from white goods to your printer could be using unnecessary amounts of energy, especially in standby mode.

And switch to a one-cup system. One-cup kettles boil the water much faster, and only boil as much water as is needed to make a cup of tea or coffee. As opposed to wasteful older style kettles that boil the whole reservoir. A one-cup system saves both water and electrical energy.

If in your business (or even in your home) you have older CRT displays change for newer LED backlit LCD displays. Not only are these thinner, they use significantly less energy. With LED lights being the most energy efficient. These use significantly less energy, and have better quality images over their older CRT counterparts.

Switch to the cloud

Moving your organisation to the cloud can save on energy costs in a couple of ways. Firstly, if you move to the cloud, you don't have an in-house server which has to run 24 hours a day, and which uses more power than an average desktop PC.

Secondly, cloud servers are generally much more powerful and run virtualised servers. This means that multiple in-house servers can be run virtually on one physical server. Add to that the efficiencies most data centres employ to reduce their environmental impact such as redistributing heat produced by servers for other purposes in the building, or using cool air from outside instead of air conditioning, and the energy usage per server is much less. When running cloud desktops, multiple users will log into a single server and work simultaneously on the same physical machine rather than having a separate computer each.

Happy World Environment Day!

< Read more articles on our Web Academy