This earth day I want to stress the importance of an individual’s commitment to responsible, sustainable consumption. Corporations are doing their part in working towards a carbon free future.

It is rightly said that charity begins at home, so it is up to “US” to make every day as “Earth Day” by promoting recycling, conserving energy, ride sharing and so on....

I want to inform you about how turning off our computers every day when not required can save us billions of dollars. 

Leaving computers on overnight = $2.8 billion a year

An estimated $2.8 billion wasted on excess energy costs each year in the U.S. alone.

On a CO2 basis, that's 20 million tons of carbon dioxide, about the amount produced by 4 million cars on the road.

If you run a company with 1,000 PCs left on overnight, you can save about $28,000 a year if they are turned off after hours. That's not a small amount.

“For example, if all the world’s 1 billion PC’s were powered down for just one night – it would save enough energy to light up New York City’s Empire State Building – inside and out – for more than 30 years”

Download the full report here. (Scroll down to "PC Energy Report US 2009").

Your PC will function better if you restart it regularly, and nightly shutdowns can help you avoid having to suddenly reboot in the middle of the day when you'd otherwise be productive. So even though this little laptop, by my math, eats up only about a quarter's worth of power overnight, maybe it's a smart idea -- and ultimately a time-saver, too -- to shut it down after hours.

This earth day, make a resolution to turn off your PC / laptop every night after use whether you are at home or work.