Computers and monitors can account for half of the electricity used in a typical office. A single monitor left switched on overnight can use the same energy as a laser printer producing 800 A4 printed copies, - and don’t be fooled by a screensaver – the computer is still working at full power to run this!

There maybe some 85m office PCs in the EU and approximately 100m home PCs, of this over 12m maybe regularly left on overnight or all weekend. Based on this scenario, around 16 billion kWh of energy is wasted annually by computers and monitors being left on – that’s approximately *€2.3 billion euros wasted across the EU every year! Convert this into carbon and we waste over 7 million tonnes of carbon due to computers and monitors running idle in the EU.

All this computer waste can be easily avoided by adopting simple energy saving policies which are supported by energy saving devices like ecobutton™.

Based on these figures, with one small click, 7 million tonnes of office and home PC wasted carbon could be avoided in the EU. Why not try our carbon savings calculator (left) to see the potential savings.