How much energy is saved switching off PC at night?

Do you leave your PC switched on 24 hours a day? Is it left on permanently just in case you need to hop online?

In the big scheme of things it does not use that much power to leave a computer running idly overnight.

A company called Cobweb Solutions wanted to challenge that idea and persuaded 58 of their customers to participate in a “switch off” to demonstrate just how much CO2 a regular PC actually is accountable for.

On the 14th of this month all the companies turned off their PCs which actually add up to around 700 individual units and by doing so knocked the equivalent of a metric tonne off the worlds CO2 output.

To put that in perspective those idle computers were giving off the same equivalent amount of gas as 10 passengers on a London to Paris round trip flight.

The event, dubbed PC Switch Off Evening, was intended to show how just these 700 or so PCs put out 438 tonnes their own carbon footprint each year.

To use the London, Paris flight analogy again, that is the carbon footprint of 21 planes full of people each year.

The PC Switch Off Evening was the first event of a new national green business community project by Cobweb, who recently achieved the ISO 14001 accreditation which recognises that a company is managing its operational impacts on the environment.

Now, the green community aims to encourage small and medium-sized businesses across the country to join together to reduce their carbon footprint, with many more initiatives planned for the future.

The company has organised several other events that are intended to show how much impact a single company can have on the environment.

One such event was a “green day” the main focus of which was “no printing allowed” all day.

Although impractical in the long term the intention was in reality to persuade staff to ask “do I actually need a print out of this”?

About Cobweb
Cobweb is one of Europe’s leading providers of hosted Microsoft Exchange services since 1996. Cobweb is ISO27001 and ISO9001 accredited, and is a Microsoft Gold Partner with five core competencies.

The company offers managed services including Hosted Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint with mobile and archival solutions, web and SaaS hosting, and white-label hosting for reseller and referral partners.