Sust-it Blog

Energy minister Joan Ruddock has revealed that the Energy Saving Trust spent £272,000 + VAT over the past 12 months on Google adwords – this is a form of advertising where organisations pay for their webpages to appear at the top and alongside certain web searches. The minister also admitted that DECC, the Department for Energy and Climate Change have spent over £424,997.50 including VAT on other online advertising campaigns.

It could be seen that paying to be top of Google is a key part of any communications campaign for the Energy Saving Trust, when they are informing the public about free insulation or the boiler scrapage programme, however, why are they paying to be top when a keyword search of the ‘Energy Saving Trust’ already places it there? So they appear top for FREE anyway, and same goes for the Carbon Trust and Act on CO2. Click on this top sponsored link (which most people do) and you’ll be contributing to Google’s profits and UK deficit. We even spotted the Carbon Trust and the Energy Saving Trust trying to outbid themselves for certain keywords in 2009!

At sust-it we spend a great deal of time trying to rank high within Google’s natural searches (unpaid for page rankings within search engines) as this is our lifeblood. Paying to be top is out of the question with our limited resources!

The top headings are sponsored links which are displayed when keywords (selected by advertisers) are typed into Google

It’s great news that the government has announced details of the UK’s Feed-in tariffs (FiTs) for small scale low carbon energy production. Sust-it’s wind-turbines are whizzing away as I write, but so far it hasn’t been financially worth trying to sell any of the power they generate back to the grid.

While a step in the right direction, and a better system than the “first come first served” grant basis, we should be cautious before making costly investments. Looking at ways to save energy, by the buying the most energy efficient products, as listed on sust-it, and making sure our homes and offices are well insulated, can help reduce our demand for energy. Wind turbines are inefficient in some settings and will not re-coup the energy used in their production, and the noise factor cannot be ignored! Photovoltaic (PV) panels, whilst more expensive initially, look set to reap a higher tariff, have less maintenance issues, and in most cases, less visual impact.

For businesses, offering tax incentives for installing microgeneration technologies could make them more viable.

Sust-it's Future Energy Wind turbines, helping power our office

Sust-it’s energy efficiency chart for washing machines has been dominated by expensive machines, but not now, as Beko have taken the top slot with their WMD78144 model. It has a large capacity drum (8.0 kg) which helps with efficiency and is fast at washing too (28 minute cycle – 8kg wash at 30ºC).

So, is it expensive? No, it’s just over £300, that’s almost half the price of the nearest rival, the LG F1402FDS6, in our efficiency charts.

Scheduled to go out tonight (8pm – 9pm BBC 1), in the run up to the Climate Summit in Copenhagen, the Bang Goes the Theory Special TV Event will be showing how much electricity we use and abuse without even thinking about it. This massive experiment attempts to power a house for an entire day solely through human pedal power – while the unsuspecting family inside go about their normal Sunday routine. Will they be driven to meltdown?

Can 80 cyclists power a house for a day?

We received a call from a TV producer who’d come across sust-it whilst looking into the power consumption of old tube TVs and new flat screen ones. As sust-it ranks electricals and appliances by energy efficiency, it was easy to show him the massive differences in the power used by new TV’s. A few phone calls later and Ross found himself admitting to being a cyclist, and had somehow agreed to take part in the TV experiment, together with his son Olly and his friend Nat.

Apple’s Mac mini has shot to the top of our energy efficiency charts for computers. Having been slated by Greenpeace in 2006, when they launched their “Green my Apple Campaign” Apple has responded by making their products more recyclable, removing toxic materials and now proving that they can make fast and energy efficiency computers too.

There’s a staggering difference between the energy consumption of computers in the marketplace; you could save nearly £150 per year on electricity in choosing the most efficient models. Sust-it has been highlighting these savings through our unique ranking system and it’s great news that Apple has responded to the environmental issues, I hope other manufacturers will follow their lead.

A massive 10% of home energy bills in California is used by inefficient TVs. The California Energy Commission will require that all new television sets up to 58 inches (147cm) be more energy efficient by 2011, consuming 33% less energy than current models. With new technologies such as LEDs and Laser tellies becoming available, it should not be difficult for the manufactures to respond.

Is it not time that the UK and EU took the same action to help us all save money and reduce our energy consumption?

We are delighted to announce that, sust-it can now provide consumers with a greater understanding about how our purchasing decisions effect the environment, sust-it has taken over the reigns of GreenChoices a website dedicated to providing simple, direct information on green alternatives which make a real, lasting difference.

GreenChoices was set up in 2001 by a group of individuals passionate about making information on green issues and green products more widely available, the site has a wealth of knowledge on green lifestyles and on climate change, and we will be working hard to keep information up to date and relevant. The site links well with sust-it’s vision to help people save money at the same time as helping the environment. We want green products to be cost effective options, it shouldn’t cost more to save the planet.

I’ve just retuned our Freeview set-top box as instructed and yes we can’t get channel five anymore! A quick visit to the Freeview website, when it’s working, and I find a message – Owners of affected digital boxes are advised to replace them with a product carrying the “digital tick” Why should I have buy yet more stuff and create yet more waste! I don’t want to upgrade a perfectly good Freeview box (until 30th September) and my television is not HD. And if I did want high definition television I would get Freesat TV anyway. Are Freeview expecting consumers to rush out and buy a new Freeview box with the aforementioned “digital tick” then only to discover that they won’t even be able to receive HD when it does arrive on Freeview!

And what if – like my dad – you’ve never had call to use the internet, what do you do then? rush out to your local retailer and get talked into buying a TV that is far too big for your front room, with a worst picture than your old tube telly and uses far more electricity – progress!

PS Finally after four retunes my Freeview digibox starts working again!

Greening your IT decision making

Why buy sustainably? All our purchasing decisions have an impact on the earth’s resources – your impact could be multiplied tenfold if you are purchasing for the public sector or a large organisation.

So how can sust-it help you make more sustainable purchasing decisions, that can help save you cash as well? For example: Are you about to upgrade your computer monitors to larger higher resolutions screens? Do you know your current monitors electricity usage use and what your new screens will consume? The answer to both of these is probably no, and that’s were we can help. All we need is for you to provide us with the model numbers of your current screens, or we can carry-out an on-site survey for you. And then we can do comparisons of the energy consumption of a vast range of monitors. The potential savings for commercial companies are vast, and for publicly funded organisations, who have a duty to spend money wisely, for the long-term public interest, it will help to make your purchasing decisions more transparent.

Below is a simple example of how sustainable office equipment procurement could reduce your IT procurement carbon footprint, increase profitability and improve your employees working conditions.

1 x 17″ CRT screen used for an average of 8 hours 5 days a week = £61.20 per year 214.66 kgCO2

If you had…

Five offices with 30 CRT 17″ screens = 150, running cost = £9,180 per year CO2 output = 32,199 kgCO2

and replaced them with…

150 x 22 inch LED screens running cost = £688.50 per year CO2 output = 2415 kgCO2

you could save…

Saving £8491.50 per year and 29784 kgCO2 reduction

Can we be of service?

We’re all bombarded with information and jargon when buying appliances and electricals. At sust-it our objective is simple – to show you the most energy efficient, then rank them according to their running cost. To help you even more we’ve now added usability reviews from Ricability, who have been commissioned by the Government to produce independent consumer test reports on digital TV products, during digital switchover. We hope that adding these extra features will help your spot the best energy saving product, that work well too! Hopefully more is better.