Carbon Footprint: you can't manage what you can't measure
When it comes to bills, finding the information required - for example, when, where and how much energy is used - is often difficult.
This lack of transparency provides headaches for businesses, which with increasing compliance and red tape, are finding it impossible to manage what they cannot measure. But SMEs are starting to take practical action to reduce their day-to-day energy consumption by embracing change in the way they work and through tools such as smart meters. Devices such as these are a great step towards cutting energy use as they provide a real-time display of energy consumption in the organisation. As businesses attempt to get to grips with their carbon footprint, will this be enough to drive a cultural and practical shift in the way we work?
Lack of transparency
on365 and Loughborough University investigated business insight into power usage and found that 56% of IT personnel did not even see their electricity bill. This demonstrates a significant lack of transparency in business energy management but with the introduction of smart meters, researchers have started to see some changes in business insight, in particular amongst the SME community.
Smart meters
Smart meters work by showing how much energy businesses and consumers have used and what it has cost along with a message indicating whether this is higher or lower than normal. Smart meters cannot directly make a business more energy efficient but what they can do is help to kick start a change in behaviour.
Part of this behaviour change is ensuring staff are on board and we are increasingly seeing businesses offering incentives such as a paid day out with the money saved or bonuses provided to managers of shops who implement an energy saving scheme in store.
The British bakery giant Greggs is a good example of this. Their staff are incentivised to power down equipment when not in use. Greggs is part of a new movement to improve business insight into overall power usage.
Research
Researchers such as Sarah Darby from Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute (ECI) have linked this shift to the 'feedback effect'. Through devices such as smart meters, businesses can clearly identify which particular user has contributed to the total cost, when and by how much. This allows businesses to take control of their energy spending, be aware of what it is costing and overall help to cut the carbon footprint.
Incentives
With pressure mounting for compliance, the ever-increasing cost of energy and increased consumer expectations for a company's 'green policy', businesses are forced to seek new ways to reduce their energy consumption.
Companies such as Warbuton's bakery are embracing this pressure and driving it back into the hands of the staff in the innovative 'eco-incentive' scheme launched last year. This plan sees cash donated to local environmental projects such as solar and wind power schemes every time the company employees take action to reduce their own carbon footprints.
SMEs
These sort of incentives, coupled with increased levels of transparency through actions such as the use of smart metering will see SMEs become more eco conscious. There are an estimated 4.5 million small businesses in the UK, all of which need to take responsibility for their impact on the environment and not leave green efforts solely to large corporations. The Carbon Trust reports that small businesses are responsible for around 20% of all carbon emissions in the UK but with a refreshed approach combined with staff involvement and smart metering, SMEs can really begin to contribute to bringing down the UK's carbon foorptint.