Easy Ways to Reduce Energy Consumption in Small Businesses
Most small businesses would love to reduce their energy consumption — not just to do their bit for the environment, but also to cut the cost of their energy bills.
Although many small businesses have started to think about how they can reduce their energy consumption, an ad hoc approach to reducing energy use is not the best way to put in place long-term initiatives that will really make a difference to energy consumption — and the cost of energy — in your business.
Sydney-based printing company, Focus Press, has had a policy of reducing energy consumption since 1999, when it first began gathering data about its energy use. Since then, it has reduced its energy consumption by 32 percent, a real feat given that the company has gone through significant change during this time and operates in an industry that traditionally uses a lot of energy.
Energy Strategy
At the core of Focus Press’s approach to energy reduction is a formal environmental management system. Focus Press CEO, David Fuller, says the plan enables the organisation to identify and understand its main environmental impacts and is centred on reducing these impacts where possible.
The most important part of the program is the measurement system the company has in place to accurately measure how much energy is being used in the business. The amount of energy the business uses is expressed as a percentage of the business’s sales, which gives Fuller and his team an understanding of bottom-line benefits of reducing energy use in the business.
“As a printing business, our main environmental impact is our energy use. When we first put in place our environmental program, to understand our energy use we got everyone in the business involved and asked people to think about how we could save energy — even really simple things like keeping doors closed,” Fuller says.
Once the business had an understanding of its energy use, Fuller started putting in place initiatives to reduce energy consumption. He has also implemented formal policies in the business about how energy should be used.
“We’ve also re-fitted offices with automatic lights to reduce energy consumption, and we have other new lighting, cooling and ventilation systems in the business as well to reduce the amount of power we use,” he says.
Fuller carries out regular energy audits to see how the use of energy is changing in the business.
Key Project
Focus Press’s printing factory, a huge consumer of energy and resources, was the centre of the campaign to reduce energy use in the business.
Fuller explains that the many compressed air pumps used in the printing process were originally stationed within the factory, generating immense heat and noise.
As part of the business’s energy reduction program, the pumps were repositioned to the outside of the building, and now expel the compressed air into the atmosphere, rather than into the factory.
“In winter we can re-direct the air back into the factory to heat the building, and this system has greatly contributed to a reduction in energy in the business,” says Fuller. He adds, “In 2000 we air conditioned the building for the first time, but the way the factory is set up, we still manage to use 30 percent less energy now than we used in 1999 when the program first started.”
Another green innovation introduced at Focus Print since the business began its energy saving initiative has been evergreen glass that reflects heat. “Only 20 percent of any heat directed at the glass can penetrate through,” explains Fuller, who says the factory building has also been changed so that there are now more windows for ventilation, one of the reasons the introduction of air conditioning has not driven up energy use.
Help for Small Business
Fuller recommends that other small businesses wanting to know more about energy reduction take advantage of the Sustainability Advantage Program of the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change.
The program brings together groups of businesses in similar sectors so they can explore how to reduce energy consumption in their industries. It also helps industry sectors work out measurement systems for energy use, to help businesses work out the business benefits of reducing energy use. Go to www.environment.nsw.gov.au for more information about this program.
“Measurement of how much energy you’re saving is the key to a successful energy reduction program,” says Fuller. “By measuring how much energy we were using, we could see that summer and winter were peak energy use times. So that led us to develop ways to be able to cool the building more efficiently in summer and heat the building more efficiently in winter. Thanks to the way we’ve changed energy use in the business, we now only have to heat or cool the building in the heat of summer or depth of winter,” he says.
Focus Prints, which tries to approach energy saving in a fun way by introducing programs like ‘no ties in summer', will keep following its path of energy reduction in the business. This will continue to deliver additional energy and cost savings over time, plus fulfil the business’s commitment to reducing its environmental footprint.