Challenge: Make Your Home Office More Efficient

What You Should Know

• Americans' computers and their monitors consumed over 25 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 1999, making them second only to TV's in the use of energy by home electronic items.
  
  
• Today's computers are designed to handle 20,000 on-off cycles before their hard drives begin to wear down. That's equivalent to turning your computer on and off seven times a day for eight years.
  
  
• Laptops are 90% more energy-efficient than desktop computers because they have to be to run on batteries as long as possible. To accomplish this manufacturers build in energy-saving features like automatic sleep modes and low-energy, liquid crystal display (LDC) screens.
  
  
• Inkjet printers are 90% more efficient than laser printers.
  

Easy Things You Can Do

• Use a laptop instead of a desktop computer.
  
  
• Turn off your power strips! Almost all electronic equipment continues to use a small amount of electricity even when it's turned off. For example, even if you leave your computer, printer, fax, and copier turned off for 18 hours a day, in a year they'll have consumed 40,000 watts during the time they were off. The only way to prevent this loss is to unplug these machines or turn off the power strip to which they are connected.
  
  
• Ditch the screen saver. Screen savers do not save energy - in fact, they use just as much energy as working on a spreadsheet does.
  
  
• Put your computer sleep. Sleep mode is a low-energy state that reduces electricity consumption by up to 80%. When you move the mouse, your computer will instantly "awaken" to where you left off, and you won't have to worry about losing unsaved information.
  
  
• Better yet, turn your computer off. A computer in sleep mode still uses electricity. If you won't be using your computer for more than an hour, shut it all the way down.
  
  
• Turn off the monitor. A typical monitor screen uses much more electricity than the hard drive of a computer. Larger or higher-resolution monitors use more electricity than smaller, low-resolution ones. Laptop liquid crystal displays (LDC) screens are by far the most efficient monitors; in fact, they're 80-90% more efficient than your typical cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor on a desktop computer. That's why some of the newer, flat-screen desktop monitors use LCD technology. So, be sure to buy the most efficient monitor you can afford, then turn off your monitor if you won't be using it for 15 minutes or more.
  
  
• Turn off the printer! Unless you have an Energy Star printer with a guaranteed low standby mode, your printer uses the most energy while it's sitting idle. If you have a smaller printer, turn it off if you won't be using it for more than 15 minutes. If you have a larger printer that takes a long time to warm up, turn it off if you won't be using it for more than two hours.
  
  
• Use less paper. Saving paper is the best thing you can do to conserve energy in your home office, since it takes so much energy to manufacture paper and transport it to stores, and then to your house. Some specific things to do:
  
  • Keep spacing small and margins narrow on your documents.
    
  • Use recycled paper.
    
  • Print out only final copies (not drafts), print and copy on both sides of the paper when possible, and print on the back sides of scrap paper when you can.
    
  • Send email or electronic faxes instead of paper letters faxes whenever possible.
    
  • Direct companies to bill you and/or allow you to pay your bills via e-mail and direct deposit.
  
  
• Copy all at once. A photocopier is typically the highest energy user in a home office, using roughly the same amount of energy when copying as your dishwasher. Copiers also use a lot of energy in standby mode--more than laptops do when they're in use. The best thing you can do to save energy is copy on both sides of the paper. Also, try to do all your copying or printing at once so you can leave the machine off for the rest of the day.
  
  
• Recycle or donate old equipment. A local school, library, or charity may be able to make use of it. If not, try Ameriturk in Sunnyvale or Recycleworks for other sources that will safely recycle it.