If we start saving energy, it would be our contribution to save the earth. If each person on this planet makes small contribution, it will be multiplied in great result.

To save energy, what do we need – Just simple changes in our habits and the way of living life at home and workplace. This can be easily done by adopting environment-friendly policies and other ideas (these all things are often cost-effective too).

There are two places where we spent most of our time – home and office, but a chunk of time is spent in the office. Most of us do not bother about the excessive usage and wastage of energy and resources in office because it doesn’t cost us. But we must understand that it cost to our environment at very high level. At home most of the people doesn’t bother about the bills and consume the energy a lot because either they have sufficient bucks to pay or somehow they get it free of cost.

1. Be Energy Efficient:

• Develop a habit to switch off the light in room, if you are leaving it for more than 10 minutes or you are the last one (in case of cubical/work area).
• Make it in habit to shut down the computer, switch off the monitor and unplug the power-strip when leaving the office for a long time, unless it is necessary to leave the system on for maintenance, backup or other important task running.
• Make it habit to leave your computer hibernated or in standby mode, if you are leaving your place or system for a short break or lunch/dinner time or for meeting and switch off the monitor. (PS: Screensavers doesn’t save power, those just change the display)
• Switch off the projector and other appliances, standby/hibernate the computer when you leave your conference room, unless it is necessary to leave them in on condition.
• At workplace most of you have a habit to put air conditioners on the lowest temperature which is not necessary. It cost more power consumption, which indirectly to environment. Maintaining room at 23°C – 24°C is sufficient.
• Make it habit to print at both sides of the paper. If this is temporary or rough purpose, then print on the back side of old one side printed paper. It will lead the saving of papers.
• Prefer to print in draft mode or low dpi mode, unless it is necessary. It saves a lot of ink and reduces the usage of cartridges. (It will reduce the e-wastage and landfill and oil).

2. Be Paperless as Possible:

• A lot of people, especially managers and crazy employees have habit to take a lot off printouts. The papers cost a lot of trees. So think before taking printouts, because some of the documents can still be stored and read online.
• If you receive unwanted newsletters, magazines, articles, junk mails, catalogs etc; unsubscribe or ask the sender to remove you from mailing list. (In case of e-mails it will save network load and disk space. In case of hard copies and envelopes by courier or post, it will save a lot of paper wastage).
• Prefer to pay your bills online and also unsubscribe the paper copy of the bills if feasible. It will save a chunk of papers and ink used for bills and envelops.

3. Smart Utilization of Travel and Transport:

• Make it in habit to use public transport like train, bus, metro instead for rental cars for your business. (It will reduce the traffic congestion; reduce the GHG emission and your cost). If it is necessary to use rental cars, then prefer to use high-mileage vehicles or hybrid cars.
• Make it policy to use video-conferencing, teleconferencing and other technical or infrastructural solutions for meeting, conference among the people from different places. It will save the cost of travel and time.
• Make it in habit to use shared cab service, bike pooling and public transport for daily commuting. It will reduce the traffic congestion, time of commuter checking and save the parking place.
• Consider for telecommuting if you live far from your office, or prefer to live closer to office, it will be savior in long term.
• Lobby your local government to spend on sidewalks, subways. With little cost, these improvements can pay huge dividends in bettering your health and reducing traffic.

4. Reuse and Recycle and Avoid Toxic Wastage:

• Prefer to re-use toners and ink cartridges (by refilling) and buy remanufactured toners or cartridges. It will reduce the landfill of hazardous e-wastage.
• Ask you government to setup Electronic product recycling and hazardous waste collection events.
• Prefer to retain the mobiles, PDAs, pagers and other gadgets instead of changing them frequently as well as try to recycle these all products.
• Make it in habit to recycle and reuse the papers, notepads, magazines and other company collects given to you.
• Make it policy and habit to drink filtered water instead of buying Bottled water, because mineral water production takes significant amount of energy and water. Even it also cost 240 times to 10000 times as much in comparison with filtered water or tap water.
• Prefer to use filtered water filled in metallic (like steel) bottles in meeting,  conferences or for personal purpose, because production of plastic bottles and bottles used for packaging of mineral water takes millions of ton of oil-derived plastics as well as significant amount of energy resources. Also dumping of these bottles makes landfill of toxic wastage.