In the Office

Much of the work involved in screen production is office-based. As with any business there are environmental impacts associated with the day-to-day activities of an office. These are usually energy use, transportation, waste generation in particular electronic waste, and water consumption. Screen production offices are no different. Below are suggestions for improving the sustainability of your office.

Energy: lighting

Monitor your power consumption. Take meter readings or check you bill for your actual kilo watt hours (kWh) consumption. Use this has a benchmark to measure energy efficiency initiatives against.
Turn off lights that are not needed.
Do not leave office lights on overnight. Ensure cleaners turn off lights after cleaning is complete.
Use task lighting to directly illuminate work areas.
Have your lighting regularly maintained by cleaning fixtures and diffusers, and replacing old lamps.
When replacing office lighting, replace with lower-wattage lamps or energy-efficient alternatives such as fluorescents.
Use natural lighting when possible.
Install timers or occupancy detectors where appropriate to lower energy use in sporadically used spaces such as stairwells and restrooms.
Colour-code or mark light switches and circuit breakers that can be turned off when not needed.
Remove unnecessary lamps to avoid over lighting e.g. a fitting may hold three lamps, when two would be sufficient.
If your office is medium to large size an energy audit can be a cost effective option for identifying other opportunities for reducing total energy consumption that are specific to your situation.
One of the major consumers of electricity in the screen production industry is lighting. For some production houses, studio lighting costs can run into six figures. Generation of electricity from fossil fuels is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), one of the most common greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. The cost of electricity is rising year on year and very soon there will additional costs as governments place a price or cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing your energy consumption is often the simplest and quickest way to achieving financial savings and reducing your impact on the environment.

BBC - A SNAPSHOT

In 2007/08, for their UK operations alone, the BBC consumed a total of 422,225,731 kWh of electricity (a large proportion of which is as a result of lighting), emitting nearly 160,000 tonnes of CO2. To reduce this impact the BBC has set a energy reduction target of 20% per staff member by 2012/13.

downloads.bbc.co.uk
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