A Practical Guide to Achieving Business Energy Efficiency

Cost Savings

Improving the energy efficiency of your business will result in tangible cost savings, freeing up crucial capital for other investments. Rising energy costs are prompting a number of businesses to evaluate areas of wastage, with many discovering significant issues that have gone unchecked for too long. According to the Carbon Trust, a 20% cut in energy costs represents the same bottom line benefit for most businesses as a 5% increase in sales.

Carbon Footprint

Many businesses are looking to achieve net zero status by 2050, in line with governmental initiatives across the globe. By taking steps to limit your consumption of fossil fuel derived power, you’ll be reducing the amount of greenhouse gases your business is directly responsible for. Though offset credits and tree-planting have their place in corporate sustainability strategies, minimising workplace energy use is the single most effective cut you can make to your carbon footprint.

Stakeholder Relations

For investors, consumers, and the wider community you operate within, sustainability is often a pressing concern. Achieving significant improvements to your company’s energy efficiency therefore offers you a new value proposition to present to the world. With many people choosing the businesses they interact with based on environmental impact, ESG criteria, and other indicators of sustainable practice, failing to take action could mean losing a competitive advantage.

Achieving energy efficiency in your business is not easy task. To guarantee results, a holistic approach is needed, encompassing a wide range of different measures. 

Understand Current Use

Knowing where you stand today will help you identify the most pressing areas for improvements. Take stock of your business’ energy consumption using recent statements, meter readings, and any BMS or other control software currently in place that records data. Building energy modelling is another highly effective way to gauge the existing efficiency status of your building – particularly crucial if you are a new business or are moving into the space for the first time and lack historic data. Once you know why energy waste is taking place in your building, you can take the necessary actions.

Adapt Building

Many workplaces are not fit for purpose when it comes to efficiency – particularly in light of soaring energy costs and climate catastrophe. The good news is there are a range of easy measures you can implement to reduce your impact, including installing double glazing, retrofitting insulation in cavities, roof spaces, and around pipework, and upgrading to LED light fixtures.

Other changes you can make to your building include:

• Making the most of natural light and ventilation.
• Using passive methods of heat control like blinds.
• Installing motion or daylight sensors on all lights to limit human error.
• Identifying and fixing draughts in the building.
• Upgrading outdated, inefficient equipment.
• Investing in renewable own power generation (or switching supplier).

Adapt Procedures

The rise of hybrid working has prompted companies across the globe to reassess common policies and procedures and identify more modern and energy efficient ways of operating. If offering remote working arrangements is feasible for your business, this can offer a substantial means of savings – limiting the energy required to power the workspace. And, with hybrid working arrangements proving highly sought after, this has the added benefit of helping you attract top talent.

Other procedures to revaluate might include:

• Business Travel – are all in-person trips necessary, or could your business make better use of video conferencing software?
• Staff Travel – could you encourage more sustainable commutes through installing cycle racks and showers or setting up a car pool system?
• Hotdesking – in light of increasing remote working, could you limit the amount of space that needs to be powered at any one time via hotdesking, enabling staff to work in a more compact way?
• Purchasing – do you currently have processes in place to identify the most energy efficient option during procurement?

Adapt Behaviours

Business energy efficiency is something you can only achieve as a collective. That means engaging your staff in your vision for lower energy consumption is mission critical. Whether it’s a switch off regime for all lights, equipment, and appliances or a cycle to work scheme to encourage active, low carbon travel, there are many ways just changing behaviours can slash your consumption. 

To cultivate a culture of energy consciousness, make sure you regularly share your reasoning, ideas, actions, and the results you achieve. You could also look to offer any training or education that is necessary, or consider appointing a sustainability officer to keep other staff on track. By motivating employees in this way and assigning specific responsibilities, you’ll create a cohesive workforce that continuously takes ownership of its environmental impact.

More energy saving tips for your building >

For the majority of commercial and non-domestic buildings, HVAC systems are major contributors to overall energy use. Often, this is due to the insufficiency of manual scheduling or legacy data, resulting in energy consumed to heat, cool, or ventilate unnecessarily.

Other causes of poor HVAC performance can be down to heat loss. Any pipework, boilers, heat pumps, and other components that don’t have sufficient insulation can give rise to significant wastage. Maintenance, too, has a part to play. Without effective maintenance, HVAC energy consumption can increase by 30%, whilst just cleaning fans, filters, and air ducts can improve efficiency by up to 60%. The case for regular upkeep is clear.

Achieving optimal HVAC performance depends upon a number of variables and considerations, including building age, function, occupancy rate, local climate, and more. That’s why true HVAC optimisation depends upon a smart, proactive method of control.

Our pioneering AI technology is trained via Deep Reinforcement Learning to truly understand your building’s energy consumption. Processing live data in real time, arloid.ai reduces consumption by up to 40% – whilst boosting performance and occupant satisfaction across the board.

Arloid is behind some of the world’s most advanced AI technology for utilities optimisation. With no capital expenditure, zero downtime deployment, and potential savings within just 60 days, our technology offers a quick, economical, and effective solution.

Let’s start your journey to better business efficiency today.

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