The recent power outages in downtown Vancouver remind us once again that our dependence on electricity, though absolute, is not guaranteed.  We all need to do everything we can to conserve.

Therefore, o·vert would like to announce its Turn-It-Off Monitor Campaign.  Turning off computer monitors at the end of the work day has become Omicron policy, endorsed and administered by the o·vert committee.  This will help us reduce our energy consumption in support of Omicron’s drive to be a more sustainable company. 

In order to understand the importance of this new policy, please read below:

Your screen does not turn itself off - Currently, monitors are supposed to go into standby mode but that doesn’t happen reliably for a number of reasons (not logging off, other settings, etc.) and typically a third of all work stations are flashing screen savers around the clock on nights and weekends.  It can take about 100 watts an hour to run a screen saver on a graphics card, the same as keeping a 100W light bulb turned on all night long!

Screen savers do not save energy - They simply prevent a static image from being ‘burnt’ into the monitor’s screen.  A screen saver will not only draw power from the monitor but will also keep the CPU from shutting down.  In LCD screens, if your monitor is running a black screen, it is still producing the black colour (in comparison to a plain white screen).  Considering there are 8,700 hours in a year and work hours on average are between 2,200 and 2,500, this represents approx 6,000 hours of waste per year to keep a screen saver running.  At a third of our workstations on the fifth floor of our Vancouver office, this represents 200,000 hours of operation a year alone.  Turning off 100 monitors when not in use (over one year) will light 30 homes, save approximately $2,500, remove the equivalent of five cars from the road or equal the pollution prevented by planting seven acres of trees.

Monitors use the most power when your computer is on - A common misconception is that switching the monitor on and off five times or more a day uses more energy and causes extra wear on the screen. If you go to a half-hour meeting, there will be no savings for the first five minutes, 20% savings for the next five minutes, 90% savings for the next ten minutes and 95% savings for the last ten minutes.  Energy Star saves 65% of the monitor’s power during the half hour.  Powering off saves 100%.  So if you know you will be away from your desk for a period of time, turn off your monitor.

If you forget to turn off your monitor at night (we don’t anticipate that this will ever happen) you may receive a friendly reminder from your friends at o·vert!  Multiple “reminders” may lead to your computer monitor being replaced by an “etch-a-sketch”!

We kindly ask you to please Turn-It-Off!