Revolutionising your office technology can help to rescue the planet and save you money, which is always appealing – business energy deals are expensive. This guide explores how you can utilise technology to make your office more eco-friendly, lessening your reliance on busy employees to consistently perform energy-saving tasks, such as unplugging every unused electronic and switching every light off.
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In your office, computers and printers are likely numerous, sitting on every desktop and tucked into every corner. They use up a whole lot of energy, as the electricity supply is constant, even when they are on standby. It is therefore hugely beneficial to invest in smart power strips. Picture extension leads, but with the power to cut the power supply to all electronics in standby mode.
Switching to energy saving computers is also a great idea – look for the blue Energy Star label. If you cannot afford to invest in smart power strips, an alternative is using the power-management options in the operating systems of your computers. You can set the monitor to turn off in periods of inactivity, and force them to hibernate at the end of the day.
While going entirely paperless is one of the best changes you can make for eco-friendliness, switching to new, energy-saving printers is a great compromise if paperlessness is not feasible for your business. Business inkjet printers especially are growing in popularity as a result of their low energy consumption. You may also want to look into smart managed print services, which works to prevent excessive or unnecessary printing, with the goal of remedying human error. For example, if somebody forgets they have already printed something and tries to print the same thing again, smart managed print services would recognise this.
Building management systems are one of the most effective ways in which you can dramatically reduce your energy usage. These are computer-based systems which can monitor and control all of your building services such as lighting, heating, air conditioning, CCTV, lifts, ICT systems, smart meters, and even fire and smoke alarms, as well as uninterrupted power supplies. Managing power distribution and energy consumption, they are a fantastic hands-off eco-friendly option that you can essentially set up, and then leave it to do the rest.
Artificial intelligence and internet of things (IoT) sensors are of further use, helping you to minimise waste on stock, or redistributing air around your office rather than wasting energy heating what is hot already, and cooling what is already cold.
Motion-activated lights are relatively common in offices by this stage, and for good reason, ensuring no wasted energy being used to illuminate a room with nobody in it.
Smart water coolers are also a worthy investment, eliminating the need for cans and plastic bottles in the workspace, which will only end up in landfill or worse, polluting our oceans.
Encouraging employees to donate or recycle old technology would also be environmentally valuable. Perhaps setting up a recycling point in the office would make sure that those old keyboards and broken monitors, made out of materials that used a lot of energy to mine and manufacture, are not wastefully discarded.