From the course: Digital Sustainability: How to Reduce Your Digital Footprint

The impact on the carbon footprint of devices on standby

From the course: Digital Sustainability: How to Reduce Your Digital Footprint

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The impact on the carbon footprint of devices on standby

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- Have you ever paid attention to how many times a day you walk away from your computer for a long time but you don't turn it off or leave it in a standby mode? Standby is a function of many electronic devices. That means the device is on but not actively being used. This happens a lot with devices such as televisions, computers, audio or video systems, game consoles, smartphones, chargers, and more. But equipment on standby still uses energy. This result an increased energy cost and contributes to climate change by increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Equipment on standby can also be a source of unnecessary noise, especially if there is a lot of equipment plug into the same power socket. This can result in a constant noise signal and can interfere with the audio signal quality of nearby equipment. In addition, equipment on standby can be a sort of electromagnetic interference. This can adversely affect nearby electronic devices such as mobile phones, and can affect the quality of the wireless network signal. If you must use equipment on standby, try to buy equipment that consumes the least power in this state. But take into account that the best option is to turn off your devices when you are not using them. So, one thing that you can do is to establish your own time limit to use the standby function or to turn your device off. For example, if you will not use your computer for 10 minutes, you can leave the standby mode, but if you will not use it for 30 minutes, you can turn it off. What I normally do is to set an alarm on my phone or computer to remind me to turn off and unplug any equipment I am using before I go to bed or before I leave my workplace every day. Do you think this idea will help you too? Do you have any other techniques that you would like to share? Please use the Q and A sections.

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