How can we cut energy use by office equipment?

Office machinery such as computers and photocopiers accounts for a high proportion of energy use in the workplace. The amount of office equipment is doubling every few years, and it now consumes around £300 million of energy nationally each year.

Most of the energy-efficiency measures you can take in this area cost little or nothing, and the savings could be significant. The Carbon Trust estimates that, on average, offices waste £6,000 each year by leaving equipment on over weekends and bank holidays.

Things you can do now

• Make sure

• Make sure the last person to leave switches off at night – machines still use power even on standby. Encourage cleaners to switch off, or to remind anyone still working to do so.
• You can switch your computer off up to 3 times a day without affecting its lifetime, so power down if you’re going into a long meeting. Remember too you can switch the monitor off without affecting work, and with no delay when you switch it back on again.
• Enable energy-saving features such as standby – you may need to talk to your IT or facilities team about this – and make sure that people know how they should be used e.g. who should switch off at the end of the day. Stickers and posters can help. Make sure this takes into account people’s working patterns – it’s no good putting a frequently-used photocopier on standby if it takes ten minutes to power back up again.

Bigger ideas

• Make sure energy-efficiency is taken into account when making decisions about what equipment to buy. Investment in more efficient technology may attract tax breaks, as well as saving money on power use.
• Get 7-day timers fitted to equipment, especially communal equipment such as photocopiers. These can save as much as 70% of energy costs.
You’ll find more ideas on cutting energy use on lighting in the TUC’s Go green at work handbook.