Lazy employees cost businesses dear over PC
usage
Richard Thurston
ZDNet UK
October 06, 2006, 17:15 BST
Workers who leave their PCs on overnight are causing spiralling
electricity bills and extended greenhouse damage to the
environment
Employees who leave their PCs on overnight each cost their
companies £70 a year, according to a report produced by the
National Energy Foundation.
The report found that 18 percent of UK-based office workers never
turned off their PC when they went home and a further 13 percent
frequently left their PCs on.
The result of this neglect is spiralling electricity use for the
business concerned and additional carbon dioxide emissions across
the UK equivalent to the output of 120,000 4x4 cars.
The report found that workers did not turn off their PCs for five
main reasons:
They couldn't be bothered (17.5 percent)
No-one else in their office did (10 percent)
Because it's unimportant (10 percent)
They forget (8 percent)
They are afraid of losing their work (1.8 percent)
"This is a problem for two reasons," said Gareth Ellis, a
spokesperson for the National Energy Foundation. "Energy prices
have doubled in the last 24 months, and companies' expenditure on
electricity is obviously directly affecting their profits."
Ellis added that leaving PCs on overnight was also causing
environmental harm. He said, "Electricity is the dirtiest fuel we
use and there is an awful lot of carbon dioxide generated, which is
the main greenhouse gas. That gives us problems with climate
change."
The UK Government has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent
by the middle of the century.
Ellis suggested that business managers should insist their staff
shut down their PCs when they are not being used. He added that IT
managers might consider deploying software that automatically shuts
down unused PCs or sends them into hibernation.
According to analyst group Gartner, companies' electricity usage is
set to rocket further, particularly because of energy-sapping high
performance datacentres.
Gartner vice president Rakesh Kumar predicted last week that firms
who do not control their energy usage could end up spending half of
their IT budget on energy.
UK businesses waste £115m each year by leaving unattended PCs
switched on, the National Energy Foundation reported.
A business with 20,000 employees typically has around 2,500 PCs
left on in any one evening, translating into extra electricity
usage costing £175,000 per year.
Computers left on in standby mode save little energy, with a power
usage of 70 percent of their maximum, PC supplier Fujitsu Siemens
estimates.
Software supplier 1E has created an online tool and game to
calculate business electricity usage.
So, are you a lazy employee? 
