SECURE project partner, Donegal County Council (DCC), is asking all office based staff to make an extra special effort to switch off all their devices when 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 chargers 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 may seem to be a simple enough request but every single individual effort can have a huge impact on the amount of energy we are using” says Paddy Mullen Senior Executive Engineer who is leading out on the Councils new ISO 50001 accredited Energy Management System.

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 their overall carbon footprint.

This is all part of Donegal County Council’s drive to continuously improve energy performance.

Learn more on efforts made by DCC in achieving the target of a 33% reduction in energy use by 2020.