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In TechSoup's Unpower Yourself! contest in November, we shared our Five Things You Can Do in Five Minutes to Reduce Your Power Use and asked you to take a survey sharing how you've reduced your IT energy use. We had 137 entries! We're happy to announce our three randomly-selected contest winners:
First prize is an hour of GreenTech consulting and our winner is the Village Library of Morgantown, Pennsylvania. The Village Library of Morgantown is a nonprofit rural community library that serves a mainly Mennonite and Amish community. People in these communities are famously choosy about the technologies that they adopt, preferring the simplicity of a life largely without gadgets. In talking to the librarian there, I was surprised to find that the library's community access computers get pretty heavy use. For quite some time, the library has been automatically shutting down their computer system every night using an application called Z Cafe. The library was, however, one of the respondents that expressed particular interest in saving money due to recent library budget cuts and plans to purchase energy-saving IT equipment when they need new computers. One thing we haven't mentioned enough is that EPEAT-rated IT equipment is quite often no more expensive than conventional equipment.
Our second prize is a smart power strip which goes to the Center for Resilient Cities in Madison, Wisconsin. This organization promotes healthy cities by developing community spaces that are beautiful, environmental, and provide economic benefits like community gardens. The organization has now set power management on its computers and is also turning off its monitors at night. Because this organization shows by doing, it's in a great position to advocate effectively for IT energy conservation for a long time to come.
Our third prize is a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate and goes to Project Hope. Project Hope is a Boston, Massachusetts, nonprofit that provides low-income and homeless women with children with access to education, meals, jobs, housing, and emergency services. The organization has a sustainability committee, which convened and decided to set power management on its computers and turn monitors off at night.
This was a great campaign! We really appreciate your participation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Tell us about your daily routine maintaining public computers, or a moment when you were particularly proud. Don't forget that what might be "that's nothing" to you may be an "aha!" to someone else!
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