This is a guest post by Sara Betnel, one of Embolden's Project Managers.

Happy Earth Day!

With the beautiful day we are having, it’s easy to love the Earth today!

Sometimes the combination of being on the cutting-edge of technology and trying to be good stewards of the Earth presents a challenge. Being in an industry that uses all sorts of machines to get through our day (from coffee to computer to copy) there are still many ways we can all be Geeks and Green at the same time:

Black is the New Green
Try Blackle: A Google powered search that uses a black screen instead of the Google white and saves monitor power by doing so.
NOTE: while the individual power savings is small…it’s one of those “if everyone did this…” kinds of things

Power Down
Do something nice for the environment (and save money on your energy bill at the same time):

• Adjust your computer’s power settings to have your computer go to standby or hibernation after 30 minutes and your monitors to go into sleep mode after 5 minutes of inactivity (it’s very easy to wake them back up).
• “Using power management features on your computer can save nearly half a ton of CO2 and more than $60 a year in energy costs. (per computer)” – source: Climate Savers Computing Initiative

To adjust your power settings (on a PC):

• Go to your computer’s Control Panel (Start > Control Panel or right click on the desktop and choose Personalize)
• Go to Screen Saver Settings
• Click Change power settings…

Give Your Machines a Rest
When you are done using your computer for the day, and if you need to leave your computer on for some reason, consider at least turning off your monitor(s).  Even if you have the sleep settings on, monitors easily wake back up when the mouse gets jostled by something making the desk shake a little.

If you don’t need to have your computer on when you aren’t using it, consider shutting it down and unplugging it.  Or, make it easy on yourself, plug your computer, monitor, speakers, etc. into a power strip and turn them all off together with the flip of a switch.

Learn More
Take a look at the Climate Savers Computing Initiative site for information and resources about how you can be a Green Computer User!