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Do your bit to combat climate change (and save money)


Do your bit to stop this

Recently, one evening after work I reflected on the day I had. All overheads were covered for the day and I was "in profit". With my office lady on Easter Hols I decided to put the admin hat on and delve into some recent bills.

Within ten minutes I had found that with one supplier alone I was spending fifty pounds every month needlessly. A couple of minutes later an email was sent to cancel the unnecessary services. This got me interested in the admin a bit more and I got to work. Another ten minutes gone and another forty pounds of monthly spend was wiped off my books. Ninety pounds for half an hours work, not bad.


With all the recent press coverage featuring #gretathunberg , a quite outstanding individual for such a young age, it was clear to me that literally thousands (if not millions) of individuals and businesses are wasting resources needlessly. In my case it was cloud based services, the ninety pounds I am now saving does have a knock-on effect in terms of less processing power and subsequently less electricity consumption.


How many of you out there are wasteful ?


Here's a checklist to gauge yourself by - in no means exhaustive but by adhering you will do your part in tackling #climatechange :-


1. Do you switch off your PC, monitor and printer when you have finished with it ? Switching it off will not only save electric but will lengthen the life of the equipment.


2. Are your home or office lights anything other than LED ? Quite often the costs associated with replacing old fashioned fittings with modern LED ones are recouped within a year through the savings in electricity alone.


3. OK, so you're ahead of the pack and you have LED lighting - do you have rooms, offices, driveways lit up in a clinical white LED glow for no reason ? Switch off the lights, or, better still have sensors to ensure they are only on when needed.


4. Open the blinds (or curtains) - if your office / room has windows - let some natural light in and then in conjunction with your movement sensors with built in light sensors - those energy efficient lights will be even more efficient by not being on until they are actually needed.


5. Are you using a "bolt on the wall" old fashioned phone system ? Get with the times, a modern VOIP system for an office can literally sit in the palm of your hand and use a fraction of the electricity. And, not only that you'll open yourself up to the wonders of a very tiny phone bill - hey - you could then put the savings towards some sensors to control your lights.

A pen, a desktop calculator and a VOIP phone system for ten people.

6. Migrate to the clouds - no, don't become some latter day Icarus - if your situation permits (ask us if you just don't know) start using cloud based services for your office. Stop using that clunky server sitting in the corner using your electricity 24x7. Cloud based services running within very energy efficient data centres will use a fraction of the electricity you are using.


7. Using the lift ? Why ? OK, I can understand if you are twenty floors up or if you have a disability. Otherwise use those things attached to your waist, not only will you get some exercise and do your bit against the obesity crisis you will also saving the (quite considerable) electricity consumption of the lift usage.


8. Heating an empty office ? In my line of work I'm often working evenings and weekends in customer offices. Far too many offices are heated unnecessarily - no one there and all nice and snug - why ? Get it all programmed up or better still AUTOMATE IT - link it to an automation system, link it to sensors - make your heating system intelligent.

My automation system of choice, subscription free vera automation

9. Measure it ! It is so easy to work out how much electricity your home or office is using at any one time. Whether using a home (or office) automation system or the likes of an Owl meter. When you have a baseline - i.e. everything where feasible switched off - it is very easy to know if something has been left on.







So, not exhaustive by any means but a start. If you need a helping hand with any of this give KITS IT a shout - help@keepitsimple.ie

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