The Christmas Switch Off: your impact

Comparing UCL's energy use over the holiday period with the previous fortnight, you helped save a huge 509,593 kWh of energy. That's a reduction of 20% in UCL's usual electricity use, and would be enough electricity to keep the lights on a Christmas tree running for over 1,000 years. Seriously! 

All this effort helped save around 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which would weigh the equivalent of nearly 4,000,000 mince pies.  

We can make it even bigger

If we switched off like this every weekend, UCL could reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by around 2,000 tonnes and save nearly £500,000 on its energy bill every year. 

We know that for some appliances and equipment, it wouldn't be practical to switch off for such a short period, but hope these large savings highlight the impact we can all make by through simple changes to behaviour.

Image left: UCL Archaeology switching off in their Scanning Electron Microscope Lab.  

Get more involved

The Switch Off can’t end here. Saving energy is just one change that we hope you’ll continue to make. But if you’re feeling inspired, why not get more involved?

UCL's Green Impact programme is open for the 2014-15 period. It's an accreditation and award scheme that's all about staff and students working together in their departments to improve their environmental performance. Find more and get involved with Green Impact. 

We're also offering free environmental auditor training to staff and students in February. Find out more about environmental auditor training. 

If you’d like any help, information or resources to make your department or division more sustainable, please do get in touch.

For the purposes of our infographic: the holiday period is from 24/12/14 - 4/01/15: electricity used during this time: 2,543,017 kWh. The control period is from 10/12/14 - 21/12/14: electricity used during this time: 2,033,424  kWh. Figures are based on a mince pie weighing 64g and lights being 50W. Figures also assume that generating 1kWh of electricity produces 0.49kg C02 and costs £0.09/kWh.