HP: Shut Your PC Down For Mother Earth's Sake!

You might not expect Hewlett-Packard, a massive force in the realm of personal computers, to encourage users to not use their PCs, but in a sense, that's exactly what it's doing. The company has recently launched a new Power To Change initiative that encourages PC owners to "make behavioral changes in support of the environment." So, just what are those changes?


Namely, its to "download a new desktop widget that tracks the cumulative energy savings associated with participants turning off idle PCs when not in use." The widget, which is unsurprisingly named the Power To Change widget, can be downloaded by anyone across the world with a PC, and according to HP, this whole project is the "manifestation of HP’s long-held philosophy that industry leadership is about an ongoing contribution to society."


HP has estimated that if 100,000 PC users shut down their work computers at the end of each day (by the way, who doesn't do this already?), energy savings could reach as high as 2,680 kilowatt-hours and carbon emissions could drop by around 3,500 pounds per day. Needless to say, this request is dead simple to follow, and we can't recommend enough that you do indeed shut down your work PC each day if you don't already.