The great thing about energy saving is it also reduces your carbon footprint…oh and saves you money!
Energy Saving Week runs from 17th-23rd October, further resources available from Citizens Advice Bureau and Energy Saving Trust.
In business situations there are many things that can be done without the need for an official audit in order to reduce your impact. Here at the Sustainable Business Resource, we like to make things easier for a firm to identify where their energy is being used, and at what time of day; we offer structured solutions to reduce this use, replace inefficient equipment, and then look at bringing in renewable energy tech to bring that usage down further still.
A lot of energy reduction can be achieved through changing your staff’s mindset. I have seen in my businesses that employees don’t see the cost of energy as they are not paying for it – a bit like your teenager and lights, showers etc.
It is hard to change engrained habits, chefs for example like to have every burner going on the hob, extract fan at full tilt for the whole service – a common habit but not required. I am sure you can identify areas in your business where these kinds of habits have been formed to the detriment of your energy bill.
Start at the top with how you behave, have a slot at your senior management/team meetings about ways to save energy. Up to 10% of energy is consumed by leaving equipment in standby mode – could a new management practice change this? Come up with a clear policy around your business energy use, and how over time this is going to change – share this with your employees, ask for their ideas to gain collective ownership.
Top tips to look at first:
- Check all your lighting, change to LEDs, or even better, Chip on Board lights. These will pay for themselves over a short time.
- Look at your ‘standby’ usage, are there appliances that you can turn off?
- If you have half hour metering, identify when most power is being used and correlate it with working hours and practices on your site.
- Do you need to heat an entire space, or just the people in it? Infrared is being used more in factory environments to keep staff warm.
- How many times is the kettle boiled (and left) in the day? If this is high it would make sense to buy a water boiler. This not only reduces energy requirement but increases employee efficiency.
- If time is really short, then commission an audit of the workplace to identify possible savings. This can include electricity optimisation of equipment.
Get in touch if you need to know where to start, email me on tom@thesbr.org.uk.
