The NIH Energy Conservation Program

In the 2007 fiscal year, NIH spent more than $81 million on electricity. Most electricity in the U.S. is still generated by burning coal, which creates air pollution and greenhouse gases (see also http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html). These emissions can contribute to health issues and global warming.

As the largest energy consumer in Montgomery County, NIH plays an important leadership role in energy conservation. NIH’s Energy Conservation program helps our employees contribute to energy savings by keeping them aware of energy issues and providing them with training and tools to reduce their energy use. NIH employees can make measurable contributions to energy conservation by using office equipment in an environmentally friendly manner.

Reduce your office’s energy use – 15 simple steps

The small actions that employees can take really add up! Obvious places to start are the computers and monitors in your office:

1. When procuring electronic equipment, you can use the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) criteria to green your purchases (http://www.epeat.net/Criteria.aspx).

2. By enabling the low-power or sleep mode feature on your computer or monitor, you save energy, you save money, and you protect the environment.

3. Remember to turn off computers and monitors at the end of the workday. Inactive computers and monitors with the low-power or sleep mode enabled can save $10 to $45 per computer annually (ENERGY STAR estimate). With over 60,000 desktop computers and monitors (excluding servers) in use on the NIH campus, this simple step could save NIH as much as $2 million in energy costs a year!

Computers and monitors are not the only equipment that can be greened. There are also many energy conservation steps that can be applied to printers, copiers, and fax machines:

1. Configure the power saving features so that printers go into sleep mode when not used for more than 30 minutes during the workday.

2. Turn off printers and copy machines at the end of the workday.

3. Turn off group printers at the end of each workday, on weekends, and when nobody will be using them for an extended period of time.

4. Use copiers instead of printers to produce multiple copies.

5. Save documents on your hard drive to create a virtual filing system instead of printing out hard copies.

In addition to consuming energy, office equipment consumes other natural resources. Here are some tips that you can do to conserve these resources:

1. Load recycled paper with a minimum 30% post-consumer fiber content.

2. Copy and print all materials double-sided. To make this automatic, set your default print settings to duplex (or double-sided) printing.

3. Minimize the number of hard copies and paper drafts.

4. Disable the printer test page feature.

5. Set fax machines to print a confirmation sheet only when there is a problem.

6. Recycle used office paper.

7. Recycle ink/toner cartridges in Toner/Ink Jet cartridge recycling bins (NIH Charities receive $1 for each cartridge that is recycled.)

More information on going green at NIH

The NIH Energy Conservation Program is part of a larger environmental program at NIH, known as NIH Goes Greener. For more information, visit our website, www.nems.nih.gov, or email green@mail.nih.gov.