Remembering all the energy conservation tips we learn is hard. Why not let these gadgets do the heavy lifting for you?

Turn off lights when you’re not in the room. Reduce the setting of the thermostat by 4 degrees when you leave the house or go to sleep. Unplug unnecessary devices when they’re not in use. The list of “easy” ways to save energy grows longer by the day, and some of us are better at executing them than others.

And just to make things more complicated, we’ve recently discovered phantom energy leaks–energy that’s wasted when devices are plugged in, but not in use.

Thankfully, energy conservation gadgets are emerging every day. Leveraging the power of smart and mobile technologies, these devices bring the “set it and forget it” mantra into the realm of energy conservation. These gadgets will remember to save energy even when you forget while also making it possible to monitor your energy usage from afar, and over time! (And they also make great holiday presents for the green geeks on your list.)

 5 Energy Conservation Gadgets That Work (Even When You’re Not Home!)

1. EcoGuard Smart Outlet & Meter

Developed by Telkonet, this gadget has the ability to monitor and stop the flow of power to one or both outlets, turning off lamps, televisions, appliances, and any other energy-consuming appliances when the room is unoccupied. The EcoGuard [PDF] also monitors cost, voltage, amperage, kWh, and other metrics in 15-minute increments. The only drawback is that it’s only designed to work with Telkonet’s EcoSmart energy management system. If you’re not ready for that type of investment, check out the Belkin Conserve Socket ($9.99) that can be programmed to turn off during certain periods of the day.

2. Nest Thermostat

These days, it’s hard to read anything about home energy conservation without a mention of the super-sexy Nest Thermostat. Like many gadgets these days, the Nest is intelligent, which means it can learn from your habits to optimize its own performance. Instead of complicated programming, you just turn the Nest thermostat up and down to suit your needs. After about two weeks, it will learn your habits, and begin to adjust itself based on the time of day. When you’re not around, it can be controlled from your phone.

3. Conserve Valet Smart USB Charging Station

I’m pretty good about turning off lights and managing the thermostat, but one thing that often makes me wince is plugging my phone in to charge, and then totally forgetting about it. Not only is this bad for my smartphone battery, it’s also a big waste of energy. The Conserve Valet Smart USB Charging Station from Belkin solves this problem beautifully. The table top gadget lets you charge all of your mobile devices in one convenient place, and automatically shuts off power—including standby power—after devices are fully charged. It even senses when new devices are added so you always get a full charge, and has an innovative cord management system to keep things neat.

4. Ecobutton Halo

Did you know your laptop or tablet has a plethora of settings to help conserve energy? Even more important, do you know where they are and how to manage them? Yeah. Ecobutton Halo is an affordable, plug-and-play device that’s meant to make energy conservation easier when it comes to computers. This simple USB plug-in instantly puts your computer into the most efficient sleep mode possible. “If you get up to get a cup of coffee, just tap the Eco Button and you’ll save energy while you’re away. When you return, tap the button again and your computer will instantly wake up, showing how much energy you saved and returning to your previous screen,” explains the Alliance to Save Energy. And it’s only $9.99!

5. Lutron Maestro Dimmer Switch with Occupancy Sensor

OK, this is for all of you with forgetful kids and spouses that are always leaving every light in the house burning bright. The Lutron Maestro Dimmer with Occupancy Sensor has a 150 degree motion detector with an angle up to 30 feet, so when the room is empty, the lights automatically turn themselves off. You can also pre-program the sensitivity and the time or operate it manually.

Related on Ecosalon:

The Green Kitchen: Painless Energy Conservation

10 Must-Have Green Gadgets for Your Home

10 Handy Green Gadgets You’ll Love To Use

Top image: nilsvik

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Can Eco-Districts help a major city grow sustainably while conserving energy resources? San Francisco’s about to find out.

San Francisco already has a lot of distinct neighborhoods–Chinatown, the Castro, Haight-Ashbury. Each has its own distinct personality, type of resident, and geographical area. These fascinating neighborhoods formed organically over time, building a strong sense of community that’s almost like tiny cities within a city.

Now, the City of San Francisco wants to manufacture a new kind of district in hopes of reducing water consumption and waste, and enhancing community-scale energy resources. They will, unsurprisingly, be called Ec0-Districts, and if successful, they could help San Francisco continue to grow without increasing its negative environmental impact.

“To aid in the fulfillment of these goals, the program is implementing a tool called Eco-Districts – a community of property owners, businesses and residents within a neighborhood that collaborate to develop and initiate sustainable development projects in their area,” reports ArchDaily. “Using a set of performance metrics, neighborhoods can shape their projects with custom strategies for their community.”

So what exactly will these Eco-Districts look like? Well according to the SF Planning Department, there will be four different types of Eco-District, and true to form, they all have creative names.

The Blank Slate

In a Blank Slate district, most of the land is undeveloped and typically owned by a single property owner. With very little existing development to work around, this type of district enables “horizontal infrastructure development to be implemented in advance of vertical development to help optimize Eco-District goals.”

The Patchwork Quilt

In a Quilt District, there is both undeveloped, underdeveloped, and developed land, owned by different property owners implementing development projects under different time frames. This presents more of a challenge than the Blank Slate. The goal with a Quilt is to align “development time frames to maximize opportunities to meet environmental goals.” The community will be encouraged “to build on its existing character and to integrate the physical qualities of the area as part of its character.” (San Francisco’s Central Corridor is an example of this type of Eco-District in action.)

The Strengthened Neighborhood

This is one of the most exciting types of Eco-Districts, because it’s a neighborhood that’s already at capacity, but perhaps not operating at optimal efficiency with regards to energy resources. In this district, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development’s Invest in Neighborhoods Initiative, would use strategies of “tactical urbanism” to “bolster distinctive character and support eco-friendly behavior.”

The Industrial Network

Cities can’t be all parks and courtyards. In every metropolis, there is a section dedicated to industrial purposes, where power is made, and where distribution and repair of all types of services for energy resources occurs. Aligning these industries so that their operating and distribution systems can work more efficiently is the primary focus of the Industrial Eco-District.

In each of these neighborhoods, similar tactics to increase sustainability will be deployed, all in line with the waste-reduction goals of the city and state. Coordinated neighborhoods could take advantage of group purchasing of solar power at lower rates, or perhaps even a community-shared solar installation.

“An eco-district could also set up an efficient district energy system, which produces steam, heated water and chilled water at a central plant and distributes the energy to multiple connected buildings, so they do not need to have their own boilers or chillers,” writes Sustainable Development Policy Director Laura Tam. “An eco-district organization could facilitate water reuse between properties, too, such as harvesting rainwater from multiple properties to irrigate a neighborhood park or street landscaping.”

The possibilities, when communities are organized and invited to participate in their own planning process, are endless. Learn more about how other cities–Austin, Boston and Seattle–have already put Eco-Districts to work at ecodistricts.org.

Images: Wikimedia Commons, Jihee Chung, SWA Group

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What will the future hold? It’s hard to say, but here are ten entities, industries, or trends that will impact it in various ways. 

In the past several years, we have all felt out of control of our lives. We have been hit by economic hardship, rising cost of living, plummeting home values, stagnant salaries, and waves of layoffs. Even as things slowly rebound, there are still many factors that affect our lives that we might not be able to control, but we have found ways to communicate our opinions and, in some cases, make a change. Our society is tackling new and old problems, setting new trends and following a new path, and in many ways, this is a tipping point where the decisions we make now will have a ripple effect far into the future.

Who are the people making these major life decisions for us? You might be surprised.

1. Pharmaceutical Industry

Although prescription prices went up in 2011, Americans are veering away from both doctor visits and excessive prescription use. At the same time, new government healthcare regulations over prescriptions that some women do want to take stirred up debate and crossed boundaries into local government, religious and business realms.

2. Oil & Gas

After the BP spill and the continuing aftermath, no one could fail to see the impact the oil and gas industry has on our lives. Prices have continued to rise and all indications are that they will not go down again for any significant length of time. Car companies have even come to the realization that we need transportation improvements and new higher mileage, hybrid and electric vehicles are emerging onto the market. Unfortunately, they only account for a small percentage of the vehicles on the road but they are gaining in popularity. Alternative energy solutions have become the next big thing, but we are still teetering on the edge of a precipice where we are consuming more energy than these solutions can meet, so oil and gas are still necessary evils. For how long, no one knows. While they still dominate, consumers will not only bear the financial costs, but environmental, political, and health costs as well.

3. Banks

Even before our economy hit a wall in 2008, many mistrusted banks and lenders and feelings deteriorated even further as the situation worsened. The financial landscape is changing. People are becoming more aware of the benefits and pitfalls and are speaking up. When Bank of America saw fit to tack on an arbitrary fee, account holders noticed and protested. After a storm of bad press, Bank of America canceled that fee scheme, but now they are looking to impose more.

The recently passed JOBS Act will also affect small businesses financially in ways we can’t see yet. Now that the gates have opened for people to crowdfund small businesses, this could enable organizations who might not have been able to get traditional or angel funding. Small businesses currently account for 65 percent of new jobs. Perhaps it took a major fall in order to make a change.

4. Supreme Court

We don’t think of many Supreme Court decisions as affecting our day-to-day lives, but recently the Court has weighed in on some pertinent issues. The justices pushed back against physical GPS tracking of a suspect, but the argument exposed the bigger issue of individual privacy. Justice Sotomayor articulated the future concern of eroding personal privacy, pointing out that “physical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of surveillance,” which puts into question freedom of expression online, information sent in email and data stored in the cloud. The laws as written by our founding fathers cannot keep pace with the speed of our technological innovations and our society’s increasing dependence on virtual communication, so this issue is sure to come up again.

5. State Government

While the Supreme Court makes decisions felt across the nation, state governments have been flexing their power lately. States have passed a number of measures chipping away at Roe v. Wade and imposing limitations and requirements on abortion that vary state to state.

Arizona went further and crafted legislation that would allow employers to opt out of covering birth control as part of their benefits package. If women wanted reimbursement for prescription costs, it then proposed to compel them to justify to their employers that if they are using birth control, they were using it for reasons other than preventing pregnancy. Using birth control for its intended purpose could be grounds for dismissal.

The legislation (in that form) failed, but this trend of state interference in personal and medical privacy seems to be gaining momentum.

6. Work

The job landscape has been a tough one. The last few years have seen layoffs, stagnant salaries, and overworked employees who had to take on the tasks of vacated roles. New opportunities lean toward freelance or contract work and fewer permanent positions with benefits, while our nation is still known for its culture of overwork.

However, mobile tools are giving rise to more work-at-home arrangements to cut down on commuting, eliminate the need for expensive, wasteful office space, and encourage more work/life balance. Will work weeks get shorter? Will more people without location-based jobs (doctors, teachers, etc.) work remotely? The current tide is toward leaner work infrastructure and roles, so expect remote work arrangements to continue to be popular, but as for Americans working fewer hours? It’s a future hope, but not likely to become a reality soon.

7. Utilities

The utility bill is a growing part of monthly budgets, factoring in landlines, smart phones, tablets, cable, internet, as well as basic heating/cooling and water. We use more energy and spend more money, while the big utility fish are gobbling up the smaller ones, so we have fewer choices. If that wasn’t troubling enough, Verizon recently decided to follow in Bank of America’s footsteps and have added an additional fee onto their customers bills. And again, people noticed and protested. Will the future improve people’s abilities to read and comprehend their cell phone bills? Probably not, but hopefully conservation and alternative energy solutions will lessen our utilities’ control over our energy, and impact on our budgets and our planet.

8. Food

Hundreds of emerging books and blogs examine the content of food on the supermarket shelves and have found much of it full of unsavory ingredients. Despite the higher prices, organic food is gaining popularity and gardening has become cool again. Consumers are more food savvy than ever before and are scrutinizing their fare. The demand for healthier food is a positive trend, but it may come at a price, putting it out of reach for many that are still recovering economically or live in a food desert. How consumers shape this industry now will set the tone for the future.

9. Water

It’s easy to forget that water is precious. For most of us, it comes out of the tap when we need it and goes down the drain when we don’t, but water shortage is fast becoming one of the biggest issues of this century. Businesses are realizing how much water impacts their daily manufacturing processes and their profits. Lack of water can shut down a factory for days, while floods can impact crops and cause materials shortages and price hikes.

The price of water varies by region and abundance, but even here in the U.S., wars over water are becoming more intense. In the future we may see prices rise or simply see availability fall. CDP Water Disclosure Project’s Chris Hedemann believes that people will only start to care about conserving water when a water crisis hits.

10. Consumption

As our economy slowly recovers, many facets have changed. Consumer consumption and excessive waste have fallen out of favor, and frugality has spawned a new, sharing economy, also called the access economy. Companies like Zipcar and Airbnb promote swapping and lending, while anti-waste crusader Annie Leonard is seeing her dream of community and sharing start to come true. We’re replacing shopping bags with reusable cloth totes and borrowing from our neighbors rather than buying an item we may only use once or twice a year. Our economy has been hit before during the Great Depression, inspiring a generation of savers. Perhaps this economic disaster will inspire future generations of savers, lenders and borrowers.

Images: Bethan, Frederic Poirot, Julie Falk, Gisela Giardino, Garry Wilmore, Wally Gobetz, Blake Patterson, Chuck Schneider, Evan Leeson, Wester, aamy.

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