Energy Conservation Policy

Purpose:

This policy is in support of the City’s sustainability policy, and is intended to conserve cost on energy and reduce the City’s carbon footprint by eliminating energy waste.

Background:

Identifying and eliminating energy usage that is wasted through inadvertent practices is the first step towards energy efficiency. It represents an area of improimprovement that will cost the City little to nothing to implement and can bring large returns

Responsibilities:

• As an energy consumer, each City employee is expected to be an “energy conservationist.”
• Each employee is responsible for their work area
• The maintenance staff is responsible for control of common areas, e.g.. halls, etc.
• A person(s) assigned a building is responsible for verification of the nighttime / weekend shutdown.
• Directors are responsible for the total energy usage of his/her building(s).
• Routine audits of facilities will be conducted, and the audit results will be communicated to the directors and other employees as appropriate.

Procedure:

General

1. All unnecessary lighting in unoccupied areas will be turned off. Employees should make certain that lights are turned off when leaving their work area when empty. Utilize natural lighting where appropriate.
2. All outside lighting shall be off during daylight hours.
3. All lights will be turned off when employees leave for the day.
4. Custodians/maintenance staff working after hours will turn on lights only in the areas in which they are working.
5. Refrain from turning lights on unless definitely needed.
6. Ensure doors between conditioned space and non- conditioned space remain closed at all times (i.e. stairwells, doors to the exterior, etc.).
7. All exhaust fans should be turned off when not needed and during unoccupied hours.
8. All office machines (copy machines, laminating equipment, etc.) shall be switched off each night and during unoccupied times. Fax machines should remain on.
9. All computers should be turned off each night. This includes the monitor, local printer, and speakers. (network equipment is excluded).
10. All capable PC’s should be programmed for the “energy saver” mode using the power management feature. If network constraints restrict this for the PC, ensure the monitor“sleeps” after 10-minutes of inactivity.