Being eco-friendly is mostly associated with making personal changes that affect you and your home specifically. This includes beneficial processes such as recycling materials, proper garbage disposal and using energy efficient light bulbs. While they seem insignificant individually, the idea behind these processes is to create a collective change that positively impacts our ecosystem.
As great as that sounds, this leaves out one major area that takes a chunk out of our daily lives. That area would be none other than our business or place of work. Since most changes are associated with making home changes, businesses don't bother to make the changes themselves that can make an even greater collective impact.
Even if your business understands it can make energy-efficient changes, it might prefer to focus on ways to invest in other areas that increase profits. In reality, making these changes don’t have to be complicated at all. In some cases, making your business or workplace more energy efficient can benefit from the same changes you make at home.
From a business perspective, although it should not be more important than being eco-friendly, making these simple changes can also help you save more money at the end of the year. Whatever the intentions are in making these changes, it’s clear that there is no good reason not to. With this in mind, here are seven strategies to make your business more energy efficient.
7 Energy Efficient Business Strategies
1. Acquire Energy Saving Business Equipment
If your business is making changes to be more energy efficient, an obvious solution would be to acquire energy-saving business equipment. Depending on what niche you're in, this could include equipment such as a paper-saving printer, efficient desk lamps and other similar tools.
2. Power Down All Electronics When The Doors Close
The reason many businesses could make a huge collective impact if more of them made eco-friendly changes is because they waste a ton of electricity. After closing times, many businesses leave their lights on and other appliances running for no good reason. Making a simple change such as powering down all electronics after the doors close can make a big difference.
[Related: 8 Plug Loads that Consume the Most Energy]
3. Consider Adding Solar Panels To Your Business Space
If your business is willing to invest, there is no other solution that is as immediately effective at saving energy than adding solar panels. Apart from taking direct energy from the sun, solar panels can also store energy that can be used for later consumption.
4. Set Monthly Energy Efficiency Goals
Perhaps the best way to sustain energy efficiency as a business is to set monthly efficiency goals. What's great about this is that they don't have to be too complicated. They can be simple goals such as not going over a certain power indicator or buying a certain number of energy-saving products.
5. Take Advantage Of Natural Light In Your Business Space
In the quest to be energy efficient as a business, natural light is your best friend. Especially if your business is situated in a naturally warm or sunny location, there might not be any need to use artificial lights to power the workspace.
6. Run An Energy Consumption Business Audit
One of the things that the most responsible business does for themselves is run energy consumption audits. These types of audits allow your business to view how much energy they are expanding and where most of it is coming from. In turn, a business can use the results to make any necessary adjustments to become more energy efficient.
7. Set A Monthly Energy Output Budget
Finally, it would greatly benefit your business to set a monthly energy output budget. While it doesn't directly make an eco-friendly impact, doing so does indirectly influence your business' power expenditure responsibly. For example, if your business sets a monthly budget of $500 energy consumption bill, it influences the business to take eco-friendly steps to not go over that budget limit.
Staying Energy Efficient as a Business
At the end of the day, your business benefits from many different aspects the longer it can sustain energy efficiency. While it might require more upkeep than usual, by all accounts, the benefits far outweigh the costs of being eco-friendly.
About Christopher Brown:
Christopher Brown is director of Knauf Insulation Academy with Knauf Insulation, part of the Knauf Group, which was founded in 1932 by brothers Karl and Dr. Alfons N. Knauf.
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