Energy-saving tips for everyone
No matter what their role or position, everyone can pitch in to save energy. Here are ideas for:
Email them, read them at your next staff meeting, add them to your intranet, or post them in high visibility areas like break rooms, elevators, and lobbies … whatever it takes to get the word out!
Tips for employees
The places where we work, play, and learn account for nearly half the nation’s energy use. Learn how you can make many of the same green choices at work as you make at home to save energy and fight global warming with help from EPA’s ENERGY STAR program.
Give it a Rest
Use the ENERGY STAR power management settings on your computer and monitor so they go into power save mode when not in use. Also use a power strip as a central “turn off” point when you’re using equipment to completely disconnect the power supply.
Unplug It
Unplug electronics such as cell phones and laptops once they’re charged. Adapters plugged into outlets use energy even if they’re not charging.
Light Up Your Work Life
Replace the light bulb in your desk lamp with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb. It’ll last up to 10 times longer and use about 75 percent less energy. Turn off the lights when you leave, especially at the end of the day.
Let It Flow
Keep air vents clear of paper, files, and office supplies. It takes as much as 25 percent more energy to pump air into the workspace if the vents are blocked. Plus you might be able to get rid of your space heater!
Team Up
Create a Green Team with your co-workers, help build support for energy efficiency in your workplace, and reduce office waste. Set a goal to certify your building as ENERGY STAR.
Tips for executives
Boost the energy efficiency of your business, save money, and fight global warming with EPA’s ENERGY STAR program. The places where we work, shop, play, and learn spend $200 billion on electricity and natural gas each year and contribute nearly half of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Get started with these tips from EPA to reduce energy waste in your buildings and facilities, lower energy costs, and protect the environment.
Take It to Your Team
To get your organization started on the road to saving energy, EPA recommends a strategic approach that starts with you. Consider instituting an official energy policy, appointing an energy director, and establishing an energy team. For detailed suggestions, check out EPA’s Teaming Up to Save Energy guide, which describes the steps to creating a successful energy team and offers concrete examples from successful ENERGY STAR partners such as Toyota and 3M.
Performance Matters
Understanding past and current energy use is how many organizations identify opportunities to improve energy performance and gain financial benefits. EPA offers free tools to help you gather and track your energy-related data, establish baseline information, benchmark your facilities against each other or your industry, analyze your energy use patterns and trends, and examine energy use to prioritize areas for improvement. EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool for commercial buildings and EPA’s Energy Performance Indicators for industrial facilities can help you get started.
Earn the ENERGY STAR
Buildings that have earned the ENERGY STAR use, on average, 35 percent less energy than typical buildings and offer a significantly smaller carbon footprint. Consumers interested in being green can find the ENERGY STAR not only where they live but where they work, shop, play, and learn. Thousands of buildings and manufacturing plants have earned the EPA’s ENERGY STAR for superior energy efficiency, including offices, hotels, hospitals, schools, auto assembly plants, supermarkets and more. Make your building an ENERGY STAR today.
Waste Not
High utility costs are often a result of paying for energy that is wasted by lights, equipment, and heating/air-conditioning systems that are left on for long periods while not in use. Office buildings, for example, waste up to one-third of the energy they consume. Encourage employees to bring their green actions from home to work. Educate your employees to turn off lights and equipment when not in use and enable the power management features on computer equipment. Work with your energy and facility management teams to make sure systems are operating properly and then consider upgrades to enhance energy-efficiency. Consider installing occupancy sensors in conference rooms, store rooms, or other areas not continuously occupied. EPA offers these suggestions and more in a strategic guide, the Building Upgrade Manual, to help you plan and implement building improvements.
Spread the Word
There are a variety of ways, large and small, to promote your partnership with EPA and celebrate your energy efficiency achievements. Promotional activities are an important way to educate the community about energy efficiency and to reward outstanding efforts within your organization to save energy, money, and help fight global warming. Consider sharing your progress with professional and trade organizations, regional or utility sponsored energy programs, non-profit organizations, and government programs.
Tips for building managers
The places where we work, shop, play, and learn spend $200 billion annually on electricity and natural gas and contribute nearly half of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. With help from EPA’s ENERGY STAR program, you can improve the energy efficiency of America’s buildings and fight global warming. Follow these steps featured in EPA’s Building Upgrade Manual, developed from more than a decade of experience working with building owners and managers across the country, to get started on the path to savings.
Give Your Building a Tune-Up
Regularly examine building equipment, systems, and maintenance procedures to make sure your building is operating as efficiently as possible. Tune up heating equipment; inspect ducts and windows and seal any leaks; calibrate thermostats and set them at appropriate temperatures; insulate hot water tanks and piping throughout the building; inspect and clean/change air filters.
Improve Lighting Systems
Lighting consumes 25 – 30 percent of energy in commercial buildings. Improving lighting systems can reduce electricity consumption and improve the comfort of occupants in the building. Compare the lighting schedule with building uses to look for opportunities to turn lights off; replace incandescent bulbs for task lighting with ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent bulbs; use automatic controls to turn lights off or dim lights in naturally lit spaces.
Take a Look Inside and Out
Reducing the amount of energy used by inefficient office equipment and other products can save energy and money. Purchase ENERGY STAR qualified office equipment whenever possible. Don’t waste conditioned air — install window films and add insulation or a reflective roof coating to save energy.
Upgrade Fan Systems
Air-handling systems move air throughout a building and therefore directly affect the comfort of building occupants. Fan systems can be upgraded and adjusted to optimize the delivery of air in the most energy-efficient way. Properly sized fan systems add variable speed drives, and convert to a variable-air-volume system.
Raise the Bar for Heating and Cooling Systems
Heating and cooling systems are large consumers of energy in buildings and offer great opportunities for saving energy and increasing the comfort of building occupants. Once you’ve followed the steps above and reduced the building’s cooling loads, retrofit or install energy-efficient models and upgrade boilers and other central plant systems to energy-efficient standards.