the big beautiful bright sun

After the very dramatic tornado here at Elon, we deserved some sun. That is exactly what we got. Today was beautiful. The high was around 78 degrees with almost completely clear skies. Thankfully, I was able to enjoy some of this weather by being outside. I was laying out with some friends and wanted to hop in the shower after to wash off the sunscreen. When I walked into my room, I turned on all of my lights and was about to shower when it hit me, "why do I have all of these lights on? The weather outside is beautiful, all I have to do is just open the blinds for some light." All of the lights on in my room were completely unnecessary. All I had to do was just open up my blinds for some natural light. The benefits of using natural light are countless. The greatest one is obvious. It is much better for the environment. However there are some other benefits of it as well. Studies have shown that people are more productive in natural light. From the website, http://www.buildinggreentv.com/workshop/lighting/980 I found something very interesting:

"Reduced absenteeism, employee satisfaction and higher productivity are all bottom line benefits from the use of natural daylighting. An increase of just 1% in productivity provides enough financial savings to a company to pay their entire energy bill."


So, not only is using natural light good for the environment, it's good for you too. Next time the sun is shining, hold off on the use of lighting in your room.


-The green team