Partner Article

Reducing your office building’s energy use

Gary Berlyn, managing director of The Business Channel, explains how making simple changes to your existing office building or building design plan can save money on energy and reduce carbon emissions.

Nearly half of all the energy a building consumes is used for heating, ventilation, air conditioning and hot water. Office buildings are responsible for nearly half of all carbon emissions in the UK and, as a result, some of the greatest opportunities to reduce energy use and carbon emissions can be found in how we build, operate and manage our buildings.

A focus on innovative engineering and building performance is essential to ensuring that costs are cut, energy is saved and carbon emissions are reduced. Attention must be paid to how the building is designed and then operated. On average, for every £1 you spend designing a building, you spend £10 constructing it and £200 maintaining it and paying the people that work in it. In other words, there is a huge potential to get more value from our buildings by designing and managing them better. Further information about how to use innovative engineering and building performance to reduce costs and carbon emissions is available in The Business Channel’s new series, Innovative Engineering and Building Performance.

Business owners and building operators seek to improve building performance for the primary purposes of reducing energy costs and complying with carbon emission legislation:

Reducing energy costs

The cost of energy is a growing problem for businesses. Whether buildings are being retrofitted with new materials and technology or newly built, reducing the amount of energy a building uses is always at the forefront of the minds of the business owner and building engineer.

Carbon emission laws and regulations

UK and EU government carbon legislation is forcing many businesses to act quickly to decrease their carbon emissions by reducing energy use. The refurbishment of old buildings and the use of energy efficient technology in new buildings is one of the best ways to meet the UK’s tight carbon targets.

Changes easily made

To realise the goal of reducing energy to save money and comply with UK and EU carbon emission legislation, it is important that you can cut the amount of energy your building consumes as a result of heating. Many of the tactics you can use to reduce the heat required are simple to implement and do not require significant amounts of technology or expense. For example, make sure you check that the building’s heating is coming on at the right time in the morning. While you certainly don’t want employees to be cold when they arrive at work, you also do not need to maintain the same temperature in the building throughout the night. Another tactic is to install a control system that can respond to external weather conditions so that when it is very cold the heating comes on earlier in the morning but on warm evenings the heating does not come on at all.

Some business owners are looking beyond energy efficiency and the reduction of carbon emissions and examining the sustainability of their businesses as a whole. They are reviewing their corporate messaging and examining how they convey their sustainability performance to their stakeholders. Doing this requires a business to look beyond its own energy consumption by considering the entire supply chain and the efficiency of its products or services. While this approach isn’t currently mandated through legislation, it can certainly help set your business apart and ensure that it’s ready for future regulation.

Gary Berlyn

Gary Berlyn is the managing director of The Business Channel. The Business Channel provides directors and senior executives in the public and private sectors with business documentaries that not only go to the heart of how businesses can grow strategically, but through the power of film provide expert advice to help in the planning and specification of the right business plans and products. The Business Channel has recently produced the series, Innovative Engineering and Building Performance, which can be viewed for free on The Business Channel website.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by The Business Channel .