What can businesses do to reduce energy costs?

11/07/11

If business owners weren't committed to reducing energy consumption before the recent price hikes, many are now given the significant opportunity to save expenditure.

This is brought into stark relief when you consider the latest figures. According to the Carbon Trust, SME’s account for 45% of UK business energy consumption.

Collectively, UK businesses could save up to £400 million a year, through basic emission reduction measures. But this clear financial incentive to improve can appear daunting to many. Many people will have heard of terms such as ‘smart meters', the recently announced 'carbon budget', 'incentives', 'feed-in tariffs' and CERT without...

...knowing what they mean and how they can help their businesses.

But it doesn't have to be daunting. As long as the rewards are identified and staff are willing to get on board the opportunity is within your reach.

Fortunately we are witnessing a seismic shift in people's mindset. According to a recently published YouGov report, nearly half UK office workers (47%) are actively greener as a result of the economic downturn, with over 67% of office workers actively turning off computer equipment and machinery when not in use. It’s evident that there’s an element of desire for employees to be greener within the workplace, although, can being green, be simplified?

AlertMe (a leader in home energy management) carried out a live study of energy use in an average small business in the UK. It showed that if 10 of a 50 strong workforce left their PC and monitor on, while general office equipment such as a fax, two laser printers, a photocopier and a scanner remained on standby over a ten day period (Christmas), a staggering 331kg of CO2 emissions are emitted.


Scaling this up across 2.1 million small businesses in the UK, if just one computer and monitor is... continued on page two >

 

 

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