100 days to save the environment
As of September 12th, everyone in an office or on a factory floor can take part in a campaign to do simple things to reduce carbon emissions, reduce the load on the environment and save significant amounts of money.
This year’s “100 days of Carbon Clean Up” is being run by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers which has set up a web site at www.100days.co.uk. If an organisation joins the campaign it will be provided with an electronic action pack that contains guides to carbon saving as well as posters and stickers to promote carbon saving. The campaign this year is particularly aimed at encouraging simple no and low cost carbon reduction measures.
These include: switching off the lights overnight in an empty meeting room, which through a year can save 440kg CO2. Switching off a photocopier at night and at weekends can save 20kg of CO2 a month and £35 a year. A monitor uses 3 times more energy when it is switched on than on standby. Ensuring that chargers and power supplies in offices are unplugged when not charging can save up to 10% on energy bills. If 20 people commit to plug in their chargers only when charging their phones, it will save 1 tonne of CO2 per year. Ensuring that office windows are shut at night during winter can save 15kg CO2 and £2 per office per night. Recycling 1 tonne of paper is equivalent to providing heat and hot water for a home for a year. It also saves 15 trees, 2.5 barrels of oil, 2.26m3 of landfill space, 31,320 gallons of water and 27kg of air pollutants. Setting double-sided copying feature as default on the copier can save 1.5tonnes of CO2 per year.
The October edition of Eureka will include a Technical Report on some advanced energy and energy efficiency technologies that are not obvious. It is generally considered that both simple solutions and advanced solutions will be necessary if carbon emissions are to be reduced sufficiently to prevent serious damage to the world climate.
