In light of Big Energy Savings Week, we thought we would give our staff a few goals for at work and home to help reduce their energy use.
Goal One – Turn off stand by appliances
Being a technology company, we have a huge amount of digital signage and AV technologies around the office. These are great for providing on site demonstrations and collaboration between our employees, but we will be the first to admit that sometimes these can be left on when not in use – wasting energy. Goal one for this week was to make sure that video conferencing systems, digital displays and interactive displays were all switched off when not in use.
Goal Two – Switch off the lighting
We have a great lighting control system here at Remark Group, consisting of dimmers and sensor control. Meaning that when rooms and areas aren’t in use, the sensors kick in and switch off when no one is there. This one was more for our employees for when they’re at home.
It’s such a simple task but can have huge savings, we’ve tried to encourage our employees to switch off the lights at home when they’re not using that room.
Goal Three – Switch up your lighting
Another one for our Remark Group employees to try at home. An average household dedicates about 5% of its energy budget to lighting. Switching to energy-efficient lighting is one of the fastest ways to cut energy bills.
By double checking what bulbs are in their light fixtures, they could be replaced with bulbs that have a higher energy rating.
Goal Four – Be smarter with the heating
This applies to home and work, constantly changing the heating or air con up or down can have a huge impact on energy bills. Keeping the thermostat at a reasonable and consistent temperature throughout the day not only maintains a comfortable environment, but also reduces energy consumption.
Almost half of the money spent on energy bills is absorbed by heating and hot water costs – turning down heating by just one degree could save a huge amount.
Goal Five – Go paperless, or at least reduce printing
We started this one a little while ago now at Remark Group by going paperless as much as possible but it’s a great one in general, photocopiers and printers don’t just use energy; they use paper, too, which is another precious (and costly) resource.
With having implemented this in the office already, we put it to our employees to do so in their personal life as well. A good example is online banking instead of printed statements and using transport apps to hold tickets instead of printed versions.
