Energy Saving for Business

Businesses are currently responsible for about half of all the UK’s CO2 emissions.

Even a small office emits 3-5 tonnes of carbon emissions a year through lighting, heating and office equipment.

Most businesses could use a lot less energy.  Experience shows that energy costs can usually be reduced by at least 10-20%, by simple actions that produce quick returns.

You could also ask your electricity supplier about switching to renewable energy.

Replace old office equipment with new energy efficient office equipment to save you money.

Lighting

Turning off lights when leaving a room or corridor and when you leave at the end of the day can reduce lighting costs by 15%.

Lighting just the working area to a high level, instead of the whole room, is called task lighting.  Task Lighting can also help minimise lighting costs if lower-level background lighting is provided for the rest of the work area, so the whole area is not fully lit.

Exterior lighting should be limited to the hours of darkness.

Replace old, large diameter (38mm diameter) fluorescent tubes with slimline tubes (26mm diameter), they use 10% less electricity and are cheaper to buy than the older tubes.

Replace standard light bulbs with energy saving ones.

Heating

Heating accounts for about half of the energy used in office.  Many businesses are overheated which causes discomfort and wastes money.

Set the thermostat to a temperature comfortable and appropriate to the season.  Temperatures of between 19-20ºC should be comfortable.  Every 1ºC reduced on the thermostat could save your company 8-10% of your energy costs.

Have your heaters and boilers serviced regularly and adjusted for optimum efficiency.  Also take into consideration whether you are heating areas that are already being warmed by the sun.

In an air conditioned office, it can take half as much energy again to remove the heat generated by office equipment s it takes to run the equipment in the first place.

Fit timer switches or occupancy detectors for extract fans in toilets.

Equipment

Turn off computers, monitors, photocopiers and printers at the end of the working day.  Switching computers off at night and weekends can reduce their energy consumption by 75% a year.

A photocopier left on overnight uses enough energy to make over 5000 A4 copies.

Switching off unnecessary equipment also helps you to stay cool by reducing the amount of heat they produce, making the office more comfortable for everyone. 

The standby used by computers, photocopiers, printers and fax machines can be reduced by 50% or more by activating built-in energy saving (standby) features.