With predictions that Welsh families could soon be expected to pay up to £1,000 per year for energy bills, and recent arctic weather conditions buying parts of Wales in snow, spiralling energy costs are concerning many. Yet WWF Cymru's 'thirty minutes of action' initiative shows people the many quick and easy ways they can use to drastically cut their energy bills and help the environment.

Whether its thirty seconds spent turning your TV off standby before going to bed, or thirty minutes spent lagging your boiler and pipes to reduce heat loss by 75 per cent, those spare few minutes can make a big difference, as Morgan Parry, head of WWF Cymru, explains:

"If we all spend just half an hour this week taking action, we can make a huge difference for the better - to both our finances and our environment. With the cold weather meaning people are using more energy, and the energy production causing climate change, it makes sense to take just thirty minutes of action to save both people's wallets and the environment. It's not just up to the politicians - all of us can play a role in making our environment a better place to live."

Here in Wales, our thirty minutes of action are vitally important. With claims we pay 30 per cent more for our electricity than anywhere else in Britain, half an hour spent saving energy benefits everyone's purse.

Taking fifteen minutes to change light bulbs for energy efficient ones is a sound investment. Not only do they save around £7 per year on electricity bills, they last twelve times as long as ordinary bulbs.

Taking five minutes to close the curtains at dusk stops heat escaping and saves around £15 every year, while just one minute spent turning your thermostat down one degree could reduce your heating bill by 10 per cent.

The quickest jobs can make a big difference. It may take only seconds to turn off your computer monitor instead of leaving it on standby, but leaving it on will use 51kw of electricity per hour - enough to boil 500 kettles.

Other ideas for your thirty minutes of action include spending three minutes putting foil behind radiators on external walls - otherwise one third of their heat goes straight out through the wall. In a spare five minutes visit Energy Saving Trust's website and enter your house type, number of bedrooms and fuel used. It will provide you with tailor-made suggestions about how you can save energy in your home - and how much money you could save.

Finally, in the last minute of your thirty minutes of action, make yourself a well-deserved cup of tea - but only boil as much water as you need. DEFRA estimate that if we all did this instead of filling the kettle every time, we would save enough energy to power nearly all the street lights in the UK.