Here are some easy ways to green your office or home environment. How many of them have you implemented?
If you'd like to find out more about how you can be greener at work or your place of study, you can get involved in our Green Impact competition between departments across UEL.
Each student and member of staff at UEL produces approximately 480kg of CO2 a year, enough to fill 2 double-decker buses each.
UEL staff currently use 9.2 million sheets of paper a year in offices, the vast majority of which are only used on one side. Printing double-sided could halve this to less than 5 million sheets making a cost saving of £17,000!
On average, printing from a Multi-Functional Device uses six times less energy than from a desktop printer (based on 20 people using a central MFD rather than all having individual printers).
Leaving a single computer and monitor switched on for 24 hours-a-day will cost over £50 a year. Switching it off when you are not using it could reduce this to £15 a year. A PC monitor switched off overnight saves enough energy to microwave six dinners
If chargers for devices such as mobile phones and MP3 players were unplugged when not in use, the UK could save enough electricity each year to power 115,000 homes.
Lighting an office overnight wastes enough energy to heat water for 1000 cups of tea.
A typical window left open overnight in winter will waste enough energy to drive a small car over 35 miles.
If everyone boiled only the water they needed every time they used the kettle, we could save enough electricity in a year to run the UK's street lighting for nearly 2 months.
The 8.6 million tonnes of paper the UK recycled here and abroad last year have saved the equivalent of 11 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. This is equivalent to taking 3.6 million cars off the road.
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