The US alone could generate an annual net energy savings of about 336 million barrels of oil by conducting everyday tasks online instead. These findings were recently published in the Global e-Sustainability Initiative’s latest report, Measuring the Energy Reduction Impact of Selected Broadband-Enabled Activities Within Households. 

France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. could generate an annual net energy savings of 164 million barrels of oil, the study found. In total, the six countries featured in the study could achieve net energy savings equivalent to 2 percent of their total annual energy consumption. Of the eight activities studied, telecommuting provided the largest energy benefit, generating about 83 to 86 percent of net energy savings respectively. The seven other activities studied were online banking, auctioning/purchasing, education, downloading videos/music, e-mail, using the internet as a primary news source and using digital photography.

One of my colleagues wrote about the study on Verizon’s Responsibility Blog. Read the full post herehttp://bit.ly/MDXSr8.

While this is probably seems like common sense to most Energy Central readers, the data, degree of research, and insights support a need for common sense policies and practices. If you’re interested in digging deeper into the study, please join us on June 26^th, 2012 at 11:00 EDT/17:00 CET for a free webinar that will explain all the GeSi study findings led by American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) economist John A. Laitner. 

To register or learn more about the webinar, please visit this site to register or for more info.