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Even once you've called it a day, the lights, computers, and zillions of otherwise upstanding office machines in your workplace may be burning the midnight oil, and using up electricity. All it takes to fix the problem is a couple of simple green steps, so try these eco-tips to make sure your office's carbon footprint isn't needlessly growing while you're at home. When the workday is over, it's eco-smart to make sure that your workplace is doing as much nothing as you are.
Ask For Motion Sensors On The Lights
All too often, the end of the day get-out-of-here rush ends with someone forgetting to hit a light on their way out, which leaves a bulb burning in an empty room all night long. Talk to your boss, your office manager, or the head of facilities in your building to find out if you can get motion sensors put on some of the lights in your office. Replacing a regular light switch with a motion sensor is roughly a thousand to a thousand-and-a-half times easier and more practical than trying to train everyone in your workplace to remember to turn off the lights when they leave the room. (It'll help you cut your office's carbon footprint during daytime hours too, and is an especially good call for little-used rooms, like a conference room that's only occupied for a few hours each morning, but is likely to be lit much more often than it really needs to be.)
Set Your Computer To Switch Off
Make sure your computer's power settings are adjusted so that it won't be an overnight energy sucker. Encourage everyone in your office to set their glowing desktop machines to shut down after being dormant for a while, instead of just going into standby, or (horrors!) running an energy-gobbling screensaver until dawn. When you're asleep, be sure you've put your computer to sleep too.
Unplug What You Can
Office machines like copiers, printers, fax machines, and the other similarly helpful tools that you plug into the wall to get you through your 9-to-5, actually keep using electricity not just as long as they're on, but as long as they're plugged in. It's a phenomenon called phantom power, and from a green perspective, it's about as spooky as it sounds. Try switching your electricity-hungry friends over to a smart power strip that won't feed them all night, or just make a habit of doing a quick stroll through the office to unplug whatever you can unplug at the end of the day.
Want to know what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint? Find out on Planet Green TV's Wa$ted.
