Buy a bosch and they'll pay your electricity costs!

At last, retailers and manufacturers are starting to show what home appliances cost to run! In an imaginative approach Bosch are offering to pay up to three years energy costs of any new appliances bought at Comet, John Lewis and others. Simply complete an online form and provide proof of purchase and you get cashback on a pre-paid Visa card.

What they are offering to pay is pretty generous too, compared to our energy efficiency calculations, which take into account the average usage of washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwashers and includes water costs. However, their price for electricity is a little mean at 12p per KWh!

There's a £100 off a BOSCH WTW86560GB tumble dryer, £81 off a washing machine, £78 off a BOSCH fridge freezer and £71 off Dishwasher. Click here to see the offers »

Would simpler tariffs make it easier to switch supplier?

The Government wants us all to switch energy suppliers more often and are recommending a simpler single tariff, with a standing charge set by ofgem, to help overcome the current complexities of having over 400 available tariffs! However, it's not just the tariff that's the problem - it's the hassle and time it takes to switch supplier: The persistent phone calls from the outgoing suppliers offering better deals; the endless request for meter readings. Then there's the over exaggerated monthly repayments from your new supplier, unaware of your energy usage, and having to register on to your new suppliers website, and having to cancel your old direct debits. And why does it take six to eight weeks for these energy companies to get their act together when you do want to switch? That's all if your computer savvy. What about those who don't have internet access or the necessary skills? We need Smart metering and real-time billing now.

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Broadband routers don't appear in Sust-it's energy efficiency rankings because manufacturers aren't obliged to publish any energy usage figures, so tend not to! But we are often asked how much energy they use, so we tested our BT home hub 2, which is installed in millions of homes across the UK, and were surprised by the results: This router uses 8 watts per hour, that's 70.08 KWh's a year, which adds up to £9.24! BT has 28% of the UK broadband market*, that's over 5m customers, with modem routers on 24/7, consuming £45m worth of electricity every year!

British Telecom are addressing this and in 2011 introduced their New Home Hub for broadband, which adjusts power consumption based on use and, reportedly, requires a third less power than previous models. It still could cost over £6 a year to run. Not much on an individual basis, but on a global scale, still means a lot of energy being used!
* Source Ofcom

Looking for an Ethical laptop?

Ethical Consumer has released the most comprehensive ethical buyers' guide to laptops and netbooks. The guide brings together work from a number of key NGOs such as Greenpeace and the Enough Project alongside their own research. This unique report ranks twenty six I.T. brands across twenty three ethical categories, to give you all you need to know about the relative ethics of each company. If you include product longevity into the mix too, Macs, would score highly. It astonishes me when my PC colleagues have to replace their computers due to performance issues, which probably have nothing to do with the hardware itself. Macs just seem to outlast most Windows driven computers.

Apple's operating system appears to be more energy efficient too, when you consider that the Mac mini has been top of our efficiency charts for the last two years - despite it using the same Intel processors as its PC cousins.

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