It's Easy Being Green: What You Can Do at the Office
Many of us want to be responsible citizens. We think about the effects our lifestyles have on the environment. We are concerned about global warming. We want to ensure our children's future on this planet is one that still has clean air to breathe, an abundance of trees and wildlife, and clean water to drink. However, many of us also think that the sacrifices might be too great to "go green" in our own office. Good news. It's not as difficult as you think.
Businesses use a significant amount of electricity for heating and cooling, lighting and operating equipment. The energy saving actions you take as individuals and employers can make a difference in the overall energy performance of a building and can help in the fight against climate change. Learn how reducing, reusing and recycling at work helps conserve energy.
BC Hydro’s PowerSmart team has tips you can implement immediately to start saving energy:
- Turn equipment off when not in use
- Enable Energy Star power settings on your computer. Look in the Windows control panel under display settings for this feature
- Unplug chargers from laptops and cell phones when they are not charging.
- Turn off the photo copiers during off-hours
- Adjust blinds to deflect heat in the summer, and keep heat in during the winter
- Reduce air and car travel whenever possible. Consider video conferencing or teleconferencing
- Think twice before printing. Can information be read on the computer screen?
To encourage energy savings in the office, BC Hydro offers a Product Incentive Program which provides financial incentives to organizations who replace inefficient products with energy efficient technologies, or add-on products to existing systems to make them more efficient.
BC Hydro PowerSmart Product Incentive Program (PIP) will help businesses:
- Contribute to environmental sustainability
- Save Money
- Improve the work environment
To be eligible for the PIP, businesses must be a BC Hydro business customer (on commercial tariff) or a BC Hydro residential strata (for common areas only).
A number of industries are eligible, including:
- Hospitality
- Office building
- Religious building
- Restaurant
- Retail
- Strata or non-profit
Your project must meet the minimum criteria of $50 total financial incentives per application and only use approved products identified in BC Hydro’s e.Catalogue.
To view all the details for this program and other ways to save energy in the workplace, visit http://www.bchydro.com/rebates_savings/product_incentive_program.html