“This may seem to be a simple enough request but every single individual effort can have a huge impact in the amount of energy we are using” says Paddy Mullen Senior Executive Engineer and partner in the SECURE project, who is leading out on the Councils new ISO 50001 accredited Energy Management System.

“We carried out a similar exercise at Christmas and it had a huge impact on the amount of energy we saved. Every computer left switched on or every plug left turned on can use a considerable amount of energy and when you multiply this by the number of staff we have it increases substantially”. The new ‘Switch Off Tuesday’ initiative was introduced to the Council by staff member Siobhan McCafferty as part of the Best Staff Energy Saving Idea competition held in 2016.

Siobhan who works as an Executive Architectural Technician in the Council's Architects Office’s believes that the ‘Switch Off Tuesday’ initiative will help staff become more aware of how simple energy saving actions can result in greater energy savings for the organisation and reduce our overall carbon footprint. Switch Off Tuesday is targeting office based staff and asking them to make a special effort to switch off all their devices before they leave the office on the last Tuesday of every month. Staff are being asked to take the pledge for Switch Off Tuesday by making a special effort to: 

• Switch off monitors when they leave the office for breaks, lunch or meetings.
• Shut down their PC and laptops at the end of each day.
• Switch off AV equipment when they are finished in a meeting room.
• Unplug heaters, battery charges and other plugs when not in use.
• Switch off lights when they are the last to leave the room.
• Open blinds so that natural light gets in allowing office lights to be switched off.

This is all part of the Councils drive to continuously improve energy performance and to achieve the target of a 33% reduction in energy use by 2020.