Little things that make a difference

A lovely co-worker of mine spotted this on Mlive.com yesterday and since I know that everyone is trying to save a little change these days I thought I would pass it on.

If there is one thing I have learned while working on reducing the Chamber's Carbon Footprint is that little things do make a difference. For example, The GRACC Paper Challenge 3 sheets a day may not sound like much but times it by 30 people in the office (that 3 sheet turns into 90 a day and then 450 pieces in a week).

If you have any other tips/suggestions please feel free to share!

Enjoy these quick tips and have a GREAT weekend!
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• Unplug — Be sure to unplug any devices you and your workers are not using. This tip can save you money in the long run. In fact, battery chargers for our everyday business tools, such as smart phones, laptops and PDAs, still consume energy when plugged in.


• Shut down — Once you’ve agreed to unplug, it’s also time to shut down. According to the Energy Awareness Campaign, there are about 104 million office computers in the country, and approximately 31 million are left on at night, not in use. This results in the release of approximately 15 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, totaling a staggering $1.7 billion spent on energy that has been wasted.

(Don't get as excited as I did when I read the first bullet point)

• Sleep — When you and your employees have stepped away from the computer, be sure to have the sleep feature turned on. This will result in your PC using less energy. The good news is that, with newer operating systems, sleep can be turned on by default, allowing your PC to go to sleep automatically.

• Stop using screen savers — Use an alternative feature like display blanking, which is a solid black screen, instead. This not only saves on overall energy costs for the company, but it also can extend the life of the monitor, avoiding additional repair costs down the road.

• Power up — Take advantage of the existing power-management tools in your PC’s control panel to select energy-reducing settings, such as sleep and battery options. If you and nine of your employees implement these settings, the energy savings is the equivalent to taking one car off the road.