"Help The Planet, Save Money & Brag About It"

To me the office buildings of the world are the worst offenders for using power.  How many skyscrapers do you see go black at night.  I would hazard a guess that you don’t see one of them go black.

Now office buildings should power down their lights for several reasons.

1. Save power and energy.

2. Save the birds.  Thousands of birds are killed each year because of office towers leaving their lights on.  The birds don’t see the window and fly straight into them and kill themselves.

3. Prevent thefts.  Do companies not realize that if they left their offices in darkness then burglars couldn’t just walk in and take whatever they like.  First of all they would be noticed if they turned a light on and second if they didn’t turn a light on then they wouldn’t know where to go to find what they are after.  All the computers and laptops etc.

I’m sure that you can all think of more reasons but these are a start and they are genuine reasons to get those office towers to go dark.

Unfortunately this is just another example of laziness if anything - There is no reason on earth why every light and every PC in an office block need to remain on throughout the night if they serve no purpose.

All the time energy is relatively cheap and companies are earning millions they will continue to be wasteful. If only there were more schemes to reward “going green” and more punishments for wasteful companies then I think it’d be much less of a problem.

Actually its not laziness (some of the time), unfortunately it is a fire requirement. When you design building you must put a certain amount of lights on a separate backup system so that all corridors and all means of egress are well lit for safety.

Now that doesnt mean that people should be keeping the lights on in their offices as those are not required to stay on. Only corridors and exit ways are required to stay lit.

So, when you leave your office, turn the lights off and turn your computer off.

True - I think the main gripe though is lights actually in offices, as in rooms that are unoccupied at night nor are used for access hence aren’t required to be lit.

Even if only half of the lights that needn’t be on were switched off at night it would be a significant help.

I really do wish that people would take this simple step in conserving power. I agree that yes, even half of those lights that don’t need to be on could be turned off, and it would make a siginificant difference.

Re: Office Buildings

I work for a business that has multiple buildings, and what they do is they have it setup so that only 1-2 lights per section of the building are on at night, so energy usage is much smaller. They’ve also installed special sensors on the pop machines so they shut down when there is no traffic in the room.

I think that by now these large companies would of thought to put sensors in all offices and switch them on say after 7 p.m, and somehow if you are working late in that particular office, you could somehow press a button to disarm it until you have finished.
This would reduce the electricity not to mention all the florescent lights to be replaced.
:idea:

Not only office buildings but also schools. They keep the power on all night even during the summer hours. They do dim some of the lights but for the most part electricity is wasted.

unfortunately this is all due to the NFPA’s fire protection codes and good luck trying to get them to change it. We have to submit drawing to the fire marshals every day and they are pretty hard core about making sure every rule is followed no matter how dumb.