Energy Efficiency: Small Businesses Are Having Big Effects

According to a new whitepaper published by renowned global financial solutions firm DLL, the key to the future success of British Small to Medium sized Enterprises hinges on their attitudes to energy efficiency. Emphasising this efficiency, alongside on-site generation and effective storage, DLL’s experts stressed that an ‘energy aware management culture’ was critical to the long-term sustainability of the market.

So if you’re the owner or employee of an SME, what do these findings mean for you, exactly?

Being Energy Efficient Saves You Money

Better energy efficiency puts more money in your pocket, period. This doesn’t have to be in the form of huge initiatives, but can be something as simple as making sure lights are off in rooms you’re not using. This can make you significant savings on bills, meaning that you can put the money to better use elsewhere. As an SME, it’s always good practice to make little savings wherever you can, allowing you to more effectively and strategically drive the growth of your business.

Some of the benefits aren’t quite so obvious: for example, energy efficiency can even improve the productivity of your staff. Employees who aren’t distracted by poor lighting or insufficient heating can spend more time happily concentrating on their work, thereby boosting their productivity.

Collective Energy Efficiency Helps The Economy

It’s not just your own business that you’d be helping, but the wider UK economy and business market. If you’re using your own sustainable energy, it takes gradual amounts of pressure off the national grid, which has a similar end-result: it can be diverted or saved for other purposes, allowing us to enhance our energy independence as a nation, and allowing us to participate more actively on the international stage. The government even provides a tangible incentive for this in the form of the Feed In Tariff. There are economic benefits on a smaller scale too – energy efficient businesses typically have higher market values than those with higher operating costs.

Being Energy-Smart Helps Your Brand

Though environmentalism used to be viewed as the domain of eccentrics or even fanatics – especially in the business world – recent years have seen a growing trend towards environmental awareness (especially in the light of new evidence that we might not be as far from danger as we thought). As a direct result, companies and consumers alike have begun taking their responsibility more seriously. The last few years especially have seen the rise of the ‘conscious consumer’ – someone who chooses where to shop based on what aligns with their personal beliefs and ethics. Increasingly, environmentalism is moving further up this list, and thus ‘going green’ and increasing your energy efficiency means that customers are more likely to buy from your brand. For smaller companies like SMEs, reputation amongst their customers makes a huge impact on their profits, so working on your green appeal is never a bad business move.

So, Where Do You Start?

It’s not hard to work on your energy efficiency. Looking at heating or lighting upgrades are often both good first choices, while training your staff in good energy-saving practices is another failsafe strategy. Our solar panels are fantastic options for improving your energy efficiency, or you can take advantage of our professional energy consultancy service. Just give us a call on 08456 808 963 today!

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