Four Energy-Saving Ideas for Your Business
The world is experiencing a climate crisis like it has never seen before. Pollution in the form of greenhouse gas emissions has contributed incontrovertibly to the progression of unstable weather patterns, with Hurricane Ian in Florida the latest in a long list of disasters to rock American communities.
As the impacts of climate change become more apparent, the public appetite for sustainable action is on the rise. As such, businesses are feeling the pressure to make an ecological change – both from a moral and PR standpoint. But what changes can you make to reduce your own business’ energy reliance?
Perform an Energy Audit
In order to properly understand your business’ relationship with energy consumption, you will need to build a clear picture of its usage and habits over time. You can do this by performing an energy audit, or a self-assessment of energy usage across your premises and departments.
This can be achieved in several ways. For one, you could provide your staff with a questionnaire regarding their desk or workplace usage habits. This might ask them if they leave their monitor or computer on for lunch, breaks and between shifts. It might also ask them how many personal devices they charge at work.
You can also engage your IT department to perform benchmark energy consumption tests with workplace equipment to build a proper image of the most energy-hungry devices in your business. This, coupled with energy readings and statements from suppliers over time, can help you understand properly your usage and identify key areas for change.
Worker Habits
Perhaps obviously, one of the biggest potential changes regarding energy consumption relates to the habits of your workforce. If a majority of your workers have the habit of leaving their monitors on standby overnight, the resulting energy usage can balloon over time. The same is true for computer systems and industrial diagnostic equipment.
The solution, then, is to institute new energy efficiency directives for workers to follow. You could communicate to staff that all equipment must be switched off before they leave, thus mitigating unnecessary energy usage.
Energy-Efficient Lighting
But worker habits are not solely responsible for high energy consumption. Your workplace facilities themselves could be responsible for unnecessary usage. Older light fittings, for example, are hugely inefficient – losing more energy to heat than they do to light.
With a little up-front investment in workplace overhaul, energy savings can be made over time. Replacing older lighting solutions with new LED lighting solutions will result in significant energy and cost savings. Lamp sockets could also be installed and hooked up to motion sensors, enabling the automatic switch-off of lights during periods of office inactivity after hours. This would minimize human error contributing to energy wastage.
Heating
Commercial and industrial space heating solutions are not efficient forms of heating. Commercial spaces are usually defined by their larger size, making them difficult to heat without large energy costs. More efficient alternatives could be sourced, such as localized desk heating that employees can choose to use at their discretion.
