Project Power Shift: Default power-down settings for computers

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Although most people try to be as sustainable as possible, it’s  often easy to forget about the little actions one can take to make a significant difference – like simply turning our electronics off. This is especially true when it comes to our laptops. Instead of shutting down the device completely, we often opt to put our electronics in sleep mode. It’s easier (and faster) to just shut the laptop and walk away, rather than completely powering it down. 

Organisations can not only save the energy they use, but also save money, by encouraging employees to turn off their computers at the end of the working day, through the use of green nudging techniques. Setting up automatic power downs is one way of promoting sustainable behaviours in the workplace.

The Green Nudge:

Make behaviour change easy and prime the desired behaviour by setting it up as the automatic default. An automated power down across staff computers at a particular time and outside of work hours, has encouraged organisations to save money and energy. This means that organisations don’t have to rely on their staff members to do the right thing and can set the sustainable mode to default. While this may sound drastic, other approaches were tried and tested, but found to be less effective. 

For example: reminding staff and faculty members to turn off their computers by sending emails just before the end of office work hours; and posting sustainability communication on the website was NOT as successful as automating the shutdown across staff computers after work hours.

The result: Portland Community College for instance implemented Project Power Shift and switched off campus computers every night at 11pm. PCC estimates that by setting a default energy shut-down setting saves them more than $80,000 per year and several thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. It just goes to show that implementing default power down settings can save the earth and your wallet.