Maybe I’m turning into a Green Office Nazi. But check this out: nearly 62.4 million work PCs are being left on overnight. So says a new report by Harris Interactive commissioned by the Alliance to Save Energy and software provider 1E.
Know what 62.4 million computers left on overnight does to the environment? It pumps 14.4 million tons of CO2 emissions. Know what that equals? Roughly the same as taking 2.58 million passenger cars off the road entirely. Know what that wastes in electricity? $1.72 billion a year.
More from the study:
• It takes between 60 and 300 trees to absorb the yearly CO2 emissions generated by a single PC left on 24 hours a day. That means it would take between 1.24 and 6.24 billion trees to absorb the emissions caused by the nation’s office PCs if they were all left on constantly.
• The commercial sector in the United States used 1,267 billion Kilowatt hours in 2005, at a cost of $109.9 billion–and power management software can save up to 30% of energy demand when used properly.
• Energy costs–typically 10% of the corporate technology budget–could rise to as much as 50% in the next few years.
Yish. Before you leave today, turn off the PC, folks.