We know and understand that you need all your gadgets
in order to run your home based business successfully. Your computers and
scanners may seem important now, but they are driving up your electric bills
and impacting the environment negatively.
Businesses everywhere are making a noticeable effort
to become more eco-friendly and energy efficient, and home-based businesses should also follow suit. Implementing energy
safety features and practices in your home office can help to reduce your
energy usage, as well as reduce your carbon footprint.
If you are serious about making your domestic working
environment more eco-friendly, below are some energy saving trends for 2018
that you can implement in your home office:
Use electricity monitors
To start the journey towards a more eco-friendly home
office, you must first figure out which of your devices is consuming the most
energy. Electricity monitors that are plugged in can identify how much
electricity each of your devices
consumes. Hopefully, you can start to
make the changes needed to lower your energy use.
Power strips work
We are all guilty of leaving our devices plugged in
even when it is unnecessary. Saving energy can be as effortless as unplugging
your appliances when they are not being used. Surprisingly, even when your
devices are turned off but still plugged in, energy is still being consumed or
rather wasted. Plugging your gadgets into a power strip is the best way to
avoid wasting energy.
Ditch the PC
If you have to choose, use your laptop instead of your
PC. Laptops consume up to 80% less energy compared to PCs.
Try Energy Efficient Ethernet
Energy Efficient Ethernets are designed to lower the
amount of power consumed on your local area network particularly when there is
little data activity. Energy Efficient Ethernets (EEE) can reduce energy
consumption by half or more while retaining complete compatibility with your
devices.
Change old light bulbs
One of the easiest ways to automatically guarantee
that your home office is green is by switching your standard bulbs for more
energy efficient ones. Not only do energy efficient bulbs last longer, they
also use 25 to 80 % less energy compared to traditional bulbs, and they shine
brighter too.
Only buy Energy Star Devices
The next time you are in the market for a new tablet,
laptop or scanner for your home office, make sure that you only purchase an
Energy Star rated product. Energy Star products are specially designed so that
they use less energy than standard models, which ultimately improves your
energy efficiency.
