Search Engine

It’s a small change that can make a big difference, switching to using Ecosia means that every time you search for something online, you’re helping to plant trees. At the time of writing, they’d planted 142.7 million trees! Ecosia is powered by 100% renewable energy, and they accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuels by adding solar energy to the electricity grid. This is because they started building their own solar plants in 2018. There are other ‘good’ search engines out there that don’t believe in tax avoidance such as DuckDuckGo but for the best in good and green search engines, Ecosia is where it’s at. There’s a step-by-step guide here for switching.

Unplug

Unplug any devices that you don’t need for work, such as television sets, games consoles, and phone chargers as they’ll all be using energy while they’re on standby. You can also unplug any other devices on standby including phone chargers, printers, and extra monitors which will all be sucking energy up when you’re not using them.

Another tip for saving power at the source is to plug in an energy saving power strip which regulates energy going to particular devices, this means you can use your computer while cutting standby power going to your printer, for example. They’re not commonly available in the UK yet, here’s a link to one which is £51 (+£7.95 p&p): https://www.directnine.uk/products/7-outlet-advanced-power-strip.  (Please note CAN staff wishing to use an energy saving power strip will need to buy their own).

Keeping Warm

This can be a real challenge during the winter months (and through the spring and summer too if the weather is cool). Sitting still all day and not moving can make you feel cold to the bone. Try and resist the temptation to put the heating on or turn the temperature up, instead you could add another layer, or wrap a blanket over your legs.

A great way of keeping warm and keeping the costs down is to invest in an infrared heating mat which goes under your desk. The heat, in the form of infrared radiation, does not heat the air but passes through it freely and heats only the surface of the objects which it hits (you!) making them zonal (you just heat you not the whole home) and inexpensive to run. You can purchase these online, one retailer is www.cabbius.com where they start from £94.50 with free delivery. (Please note CAN staff wishing to use an infrared heating mat will need to buy their own).

If you do need to put the heating on, try to limit the amount of time it’s on, and only heat the rooms you’ll be using.

Switching to Green

Switching to a green energy tariff can be one of the simplest ways to save money, you can find out more via the UK’s leading green energy comparison site, Big Clean Switch – based in Bournemouth.

What is your Carbon Footprint?

Your carbon footprint is how much carbon you produce, this could be from flights, driving, or energy in your home. There are lots of carbon calculators out there that can work out what your carbon footprint is, a lot of them are very tech heavy though.

The WWF (pandas not wrestling) has a great one which you can visit here. It does have a number of commuting questions which might not be relevant but it doesn’t take very long, it’s not very complex, and it’s a great introduction to the world of calculating carbon. You’ll get a final score which means you can then redo it once you’ve put some of these measure into place and then redo the footprint calculation and be very smug with how much more efficient you are!