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Employee Computer and Monitor Powerdown Campaign

Sustainability initiatives from waste to transport have excelled on an internal and external level within Â鶹ӰԺ County.  The County’s Sustainability office is continuously looking for better ways to become more efficient, conserve more and promote environmental consciousness. While the transition to more sustainable and resilient cities is well on its way, energy consumption remains a facet of which Â鶹ӰԺ County holds significant reduction potential. Starting at an internal level, the County intends to reduce energy use using Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) strategies to target a specific behavior: the number of computer/monitor power-down among Â鶹ӰԺ County’s employees.

We will conduct focus groups and surveys to identify current employee behavior as well as possible barriers to change. Our experiment requires participation from the staff members of two sites, Parks & Open Space and the Â鶹ӰԺ County Courthouse. Each site will include a control group: approximately 20 individuals who will receive all emails, surveys and suggestions to reduce energy use; and a treatment group: the remainder of staff who will receive all aforementioned support as well as one-on-one educational training of computer settings, county policy, and power-down potential. Observations of the computer/monitor/powerstrip environment pre- and post-implementation will be recorded to measure the effects of the campaign for both the control and treatments groups. Data provided by the Â鶹ӰԺ County IT department of average computer energy usage will be utilized to calculate the approximate energy savings produced from power-downs.