However, with endless options and information at our fingertips, deciding to go green can be a rather overwhelming decision. If that sounds like you, don’t fret. Technology has a solution for that, too!
From social media to phone apps to energy-efficient home improvements, there are countless tools out there to assist you on this journey. These top technologies will help you go green in 2016.
Cloud Storage
Whether it’s at home or in the corporate world, cloud storage is revolutionizing our consumption practices and improving overall productivity.
Companies waste countless watts of energy and thousands of dollars every year on maintaining their servers, just to keep them powered, cooled, and properly upgraded, all of which gets taken care of automatically when they opt for online software storage.
Smaller businesses benefit so greatly that it’s projected that 80 percent of these corporations will be partially or fully cloud-based by the end of 2016. Research has also shown that employees who are given the opportunity to work from home–a major perk of the cloud–are 13 percent more productive than their in-office counterparts and have an improved work-life balance.
Social Media Networks
The world is now more connected than ever before, in large part due to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and green organizations are using this to their advantage to get their message out there.
By choosing to follow your favorite eco-minded organizations, you can read articles on global climate change, find ways to decrease your carbon footprint, sign petitions, and donate to green initiatives, all while scrolling through funny cat videos and your friend’s vacation photos on your newsfeed.
If you need a place to start, check out the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and the Earth Day Network. As an added bonus, as the site’s internal algorithms learn your preferences for eco-friendly companies, you will begin to get advertisements that are more in tune with your sustainability mindset.
Smartphone Apps
If we aren’t on our computers, we’re on our smartphones, where apps abound to improve green awareness in our own personal lives.
Whether you’re looking for the closest recycling center or chemical-free cleaning solutions, there’s an app for that, most of which cost little to nothing to download. The diversity of apps simply goes to show that there is a plethora of ways to green up your daily life.
Many of these apps offer suggestions on ways to make more eco-friendly choices, while others offer information about specific companies and location data. Now all you have to do in order to make significant strides for the planet is pull out your phone!
Environmentally-Friendly Phone Chargers
Green accessories for your smartphone abound, due in large part to consumer demand for sustainably-made alternatives.
Since most electronic devices tend to be incredibly energy-inefficient, with frequent and excessive charging, phone chargers that automatically break the connection to the power source once a device has been unplugged, like this one from Asmo, help eradicate wasted power.
However, you can eliminate your energy pull altogether and unleash your charging ability from the confines of an outlet by opting for a solar-powered charger instead.
Plummeting Price of Solar Power
Not that long ago, installing solar panels on your home was an expense few people could afford.
But thanks in large part to the Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which provides a 30 percent tax incentive for all residential and commercial solar power installations, as well as encouraging technological advances that have greatly increased a solar cell’s energy capacity, the demand for photovoltaic power has skyrocketed, causing prices to plummet.
In fact, it’s projected that the US will have installed enough solar panels by the end of 2020 to generate almost 100 gigawatts of power. States like Hawaii are leading the charge to make this happen by signing legislation that mandates 100 percent of their energy come from renewable resources by 2045.
Affordable Electric Cars
Electric cars used to get a bad wrap. Most people considered them to be an incredibly expensive waste of money. However, because of improvements in reliability and battery life, the market for electric cars is steadily growing, and rightly so.
These vehicles are able to reduce noise pollution and toxic emissions down to zero, all while saving an owner $2,000 to $4,000 a year on gas. Add in federal tax incentives, and the sticker price of many electric cars becomes relatively comparable to most gas-guzzlers out there, too.
Just by making a few small choices, we can all go greener in 2016—with a lot of help from technology.
