Greener Gadgets

Purchasing that 'must have' plasma HDTV in the January sales may have seemed a great idea, but what's it going to cost to run in the coming year? Could consumers be missing out on an opportunity to save money and reduce their CO2 emissions? sust-it thinks so.

sust-it.net is a new website that compares the published running costs of consumer or office electrical and white goods, rather than just their prices and features. It does this by taking the manufacturer's published energy consumption rates then multiplying this by an average electricity unit tariff. So making it possible to see how much it will cost the buyer to sit in front of that shiny new plasma each day, and an indication of what the new year's electricity bill holds in store.

The results can make interesting reading, for example, there are plasma screens available that use nearly 1.5 Kwh (kilowatts of power used per hour) which could cost you £1.18p an evening to watch, for 5 hours, or £503.04 a year if you watched 6 hours a day. This will generate 1.4 tonnes of climate changing carbon dioxide a year.

The sust-it website has been conceived and developed by TurnRound Multimedia, after its proprietor Ross Lammas, became increasingly frustrated by the difficulty in finding the data on the energy consumption of products, whilst he was building an environmentally sustainable office and home in Gloucestershire.

Ross says, "All the information on power usage is out there, it's just difficult to find. I hope the sust-it.net's website helps us all to save energy and offers manufacturers and retailers a great opportunity to showcase their most energy efficient products."

If individuals and organisations choose energy efficient products in their homes and workplaces they can have a real impact on long-term CO2 emissions and save money. Simply using sust-it.net growing database to view the potential "per day" or "per year running" costs of electrical and white goods, consumers can make informed buying decisions, which will have less impact on the environment.

More information can be found at: sust-it.net

C02 Calculations taken from National Energy Foundation.

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