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Energy Action Month 2014 — Tips for Advanced Energy Savers

Big changes start with small steps. Our customers and employees know that every Energy Action Month, you can count on the USPS^® Sustainability team to share tips on saving energy. Our employees have been conserving energy for years by taking simple actions such as shutting off lights when letter carriers leave for the morning, reporting water leaks as soon as possible, and ensuring that outside doors are tightly sealed and shut. These small changes have helped the U.S. Postal Service^® reduce facility energy usage 33.1 percent from 2003 to 2013. And our employees can use the same tips to save energy at home.

Now that everyone is on board with the basic ways to save energy, it’s time to amp it up (pun intended) for Energy Action Month 2014. We would like to focus on the not-so-common ways to save energy. You can call it our Top 10 list of ways to save energy for the advanced energy saver:

1. Wash your clothes in cold water.

2. Bring a reusable mug to your local coffee shop.

3. Trade in paper napkins for reusable cloth ones.

4. Close the blinds and drapes on hot summer days and open them up on cold winter days.

5. Eat a plant-based meal once a week.

6. Remove extra materials from your car trunk. That extra weight may be costing you at the gas pump!

7. Print on both sides of the paper.

8. Use shredded waste paper for packing parcels during the holidays.

9. Give your clothes dryer a rest by air drying clothes. As a bonus, this will help to humidify your home in the winter!

10. Consider buying items second hand rather than new, and give away or donate items that still have life in them.

Thank you for all that you do to save energy here at the Postal Service™.