Growing Greener: Let There Be Light! (Or, How My Condo Association Saved $2,000 on Electricity)

Advances in lighting can save energy and money at your home, in the workplace and along our city streets.

There aren't a lot of ways to help the environment that are cheap and easy. But we found one. It came at a particularly dull moment in the condo meeting, as we reviewed the “financials.” Charts showed how much we had spent this year compared to what we spent on the same things last year. But as we turned a page in the report, a murmur of surprise ran through the room.  “How come there’s this big difference in what we spent on electricity? How come the cost went down? By two thousand dollars!”  The answer was: lighting. It turns out the drop in electricity was because we changed our outdoor lights and stairway lights to ones that are turned on by motion sensors when someone appears who needs lighting. Instead of the lights being on all …

• Photos (4)