Procedures to purchase equipment and the implementation of systems vary within organisations. In many cases, the future operating costs of items are not considered when the initial purchase decision is made because suppliers do not readily provide such information and usually purchasers don't ask for it. It's too late once the equipment is installed. The following information will help to ensure that this doesn't happen in your organisation in the future. Taking Action Find out who in your organisation specifies and purchases equipment. This might be one person, an entire department or a number of people in different areas. Work with the people that make purchases to introduce an additional criterion of 'future running costs' into the organisation's purchasing decision process. Running costs will include energy costs to run the equipment as well as ongoing maintenance costs. Provide your purchasing people with the Checklist below which outlines issues that should be considered before purchasing new equipment. The Buying New Equipment Calculator will enable them to work out the future running costs of equipment.

Make informed decisions when purchasing equipment – ask your supplier how much energy the product will consume per year and calculate the costs.

Whether the purchase is for a photocopier, motor or refrigerator, ask your supplier to advise how many Watts the equipment draws or the kilowatt hours per year it uses. Since between 20-80% of energy is consumed when equipment is activated but doing nothing useful, you need to obtain two pieces of information in your supplier's quotation:

1. How much energy does the equipment use when it is "on" but not operating? For instance, a chip fryer uses energy whilst it is waiting to cook chips. For office equipment, it is relatively easy to find out this energy level since most equipment now have a "standby mode" or "sleep mode" which means the amount of energy drawn when the equipment is "on" but not operating can be set to a specified low level.
2. How much energy does the equipment use when it is in operation? For instance, when a photocopier is actually taking photocopies.

With office equipment, for instance, power consumption details can be found under "Specifications" at the rear of the equipment's Operating Manual or User Guide. Having obtained the necessary information, you can now use the Buying New Equipment Calculator and make a comparison between two products.

Is the equipment really necessary or are there other ways to provide the service? Is the equipment the correct size for the job it is required to do? Oversizing of equipment often means it won't work at the optimum level of efficiency. What is the energy consumption per year when the equipment is "on", but doing nothing useful? For most equipment, between 20 and 80% of total energy use occurs when it is standing by, waiting to be operated. Can it be set to a minimum energy consumption level? For many types of office equipment for instance, the Energy Star logo indicates it is capable of being set to a low energy standby mode. How much energy does the equipment use per year when it is actually operating?