Save energy and win FA Cup tickets

Friday, 10 December 2010

The University has committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 35% by the end of academic year 2015/16 (against a 2008/09 baseline). This is vital for two reasons: to reduce our environmental impact and secure future funding, and to demonstrate the University's leadership in the fight against climate change.

Personal IT equipment contributes significantly to our carbon footprint: a recent study in the Palmer Building demonstrated that each desktop PC and monitor uses approximately £3 of electricity per week if left on 24/7. This figure becomes staggering when we consider the University has approximately 4,500 computers and over 80% of these were left on last Christmas Day...

In total, this equates to over 5,000 tonnes of CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent), or more than 10% of our total carbon footprint.

What can we do to help?

The Environment, Energy and Sustainability Team (EEST) have highlighted a few simple tips that everybody around the University can use in order to cut carbon through computer usage:

• If you are away from your desk for more than 15 minutes, you should be thinking of turning off your computer. As many of us are regularly away from our desks, this could save 50p per week per PC - that's a potential saving of £2250 per week, or 854 tonnes CO₂e
• When you go home in the evening, you should turn off your PC. If you need remote access to files, then you may set up a VPN connection. To find out more, please visit the ITS website. This could save £2 per week per computer, £9,500 per week across the University, and could prevent the unnecessary use of 3,417 tonnes CO₂e
• IT Services are working towards a system that will automatically shut down PCs that have been logged out and left on for more than 15 minutes. This will help us save further, in areas such as PC labs
• Another benefit of regularly turning off your computer is that it will only ‘update' when started up, so to keep your computer maintained and secure, regular shut downs are essential
• The University is moving towards Windows 7 operating system. This will not only make the PC start up more quickly but will also enable extra energy saving options

'Shut Down' initiative

EEST have also launched a ‘Shut Down' initiative, with a fantastic prize...

Tom Yearley, Energy Officer, said: "Turning off items that are not being used has many additional benefits besides saving energy, reducing our carbon footprint and lowering costs; it can prolong the life of the equipment and will also reduce the risk of fires within our buildings. This is something that everyone can help with, and many people already recognise the importance of turning off electrical equipment that's not in use.

"The Shut Down Guide provides a quick and easy reference point for people to check which equipment can be switched off at the end of the day/week etc. Using the Guide in your office is a great way to capture all of the aforementioned benefits in one go. Anyone who follows the below steps will be in with a chance of winning two tickets to the third round of the FA Cup, which have been kindly provided by our gas supplier, E.On."

How to enter

• download the Shut Down Guide
• fill in the form
• put it up on a prominent wall in your office/work area
• send a photo to eest@reading.ac.uk by 23 December 2010
• the winner will be announced on the same day

As not everyone has access to the internet, please pass this message on to all staff who would be interested in taking part. You may even want to use it at home.

Please contact Tom Yearley, Energy Officer if you have any questions: t.yearley@reading.ac.uk or x4472.