UK – 11 ways to turn your computer green

Green PC, the great little green blog on all things to do with personal computing, has come up with this superb list of action you can do both at home and at work to lower the impact of your IT. A New Year‘‘s action resolution.



Natural Choices reports that the fast-moving pace of technology is good news for gadget lovers, but not such good news for the environment. As we acquire more and more electronic products, an explosion in e-waste (electronic scrap) containing toxic chemicals that cannot be disposed of safely is a growing concern. To make environmental matters worse, devices are burning up more energy than they need to through being left on while not in use.



The blame lies with both PC users and manufacturers. Last year saw campaign group Greenpeace take on Apple, slamming its lack of environmental policies and non-existent plan to reduce its eco-impact. App le CEO Steve Jobs rectified this in May, when he posted environmental targets online.



Other PC makers have been making a lot of noise about their energy efficiency, reducing carbon footprints and cutting non-renewable or toxic components. PC World‘‘s carbon-neutral PC has been picking up a lot of press attention, while Intel has been working on energy-efficient Santa Rosa and Centrino processors and rolling them out into various laptops.



Laptops that have flash memory rather than hard disks are another green choice. With no platter to spin, far less energy is required to write data to memory. They‘‘re a pricey option at the moment – Sony‘‘s Vaio TZ18GN costs £350 more than its hard disk version, and has a 32GB capacity rather than 100GB – but we expect to see prices drop as more are launched.



1. Set Sleep Time for your PC



If you don‘‘t tap your keyboard for 10 minutes, your PC will often go to sl eep. Your PC‘‘s screen is probably set to go into power-saving mode after a preset period. Although they‘‘re not as power-hungry as old-style CRT displays, you can still save a great deal by having your flat-panel power off in this manner.



To adjust the setting for your PC or laptop, go to Control Panel, Power Options and select a screen power-off schedule to suit. Note that screensavers don‘‘t reduce energy consumption. You can also enable PC hibernation but, as with standby mode for other devices, this doesn‘‘t completely power down your PC. It‘‘s all too easy to assume you‘‘re keeping costs and power consumption down, even though the current is still flowing.



You‘‘ll see different power scheme options for desktop and laptop PCs. Your laptop can automatically adjust its power options depending on whether you‘‘re running it from batteries or mains power.



You‘‘ll find a range of energy-use calculators online, such as Energy Star‘‘s (eu-energystar.org). The savings you can make depend on how much you use your PC and the size of your screen, but could be £50 a year or more. energy star



2. Turn it all off



According to a study by Fujitsu, the UK wastes £123m powering PCs left on out of hours. That‘‘s not only a lot of wasted energy – it‘‘s a lot of money too.



An individual computer left on all the time costs about £37 a year to run. Switch it off at night and weekends and this figure can be reduced to just £10 a year. The energy saved could make almost 35,000 cups of coffee, according to the Carbon Trust.



Some argue that a PC should be left on all the time because turning it on and off causes stress to the computer‘‘s components. But if this were the case, the vast majority of PCs would suffer from such damage. They don‘‘t.



Another argument against turning off a computer is the energy required to start it up again. To be as green a