How to Save Energy and Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Despite the price of gas recently lowering, the overall price of energy is still on the up. Energy costs form a significant overhead for businesses. From reading this article you will find helpful hints and tips to show you and your business how to save energy consumption and therefore the costs.

Know your Usage

To begin with you should find out how much energy you are using, this will give you a good starting point. The only way you can make a change is by working out what needs doing and how you can achieve it. Take a look at your energy bills from the last year and try and pinpoint where your energy use is at its maximum. Things to look for include specific times of the day in which your energy use is particularly high, obviously there will be times of the year in which your energy consumption is higher due to weather and temperature. One thing you may want to look in to is your actual meter reading, try reading it yourself just to make sure you have the right figure and that you are only paying for what you actually use. There are products on the market that can make this procedure as simple as possible.

Make sure your costs are correct

Do you just pay your bills or do you take time to look over them to make sure they are correct. Is you current energy provider giving you the best deal they can? Would a change of provider benefit you? This information is available online, so you can compare your costs to those of competing providers.

Reduce your usage

One of the best ways to lower your cost is by focusing on lowering your usage, by making small changes here you can really make a difference. This will mean getting your workforce involved and getting them to help, all of which will have a great impact. 

Other energy saving tips: 

Always turn off appliances when you arent using them.

Turning off a computer at the end of the day can mean a £40 saving each year compared to leaving it on overnight.

Try and be conservative with your heating.

Overuse of heating is typical in many offices and shopping areas.

Reducing the setting on your thermostat by a couple of degrees can give you significant savings.

A cost saving alternative to using energy-heavy air conditioning units is simply to open a few windows.

If you are not using something then make an effort to make sure it is switched off.

The difference between fully switching something off and leaving it on stand-by can also make a big difference to your energy bill.

Draft prevention can be aided simply by making sure all of your doors and windows are closed properly.

Keep warmth in while working, after all, you arent paying to heat outside.

Using natural light where possible instead of turning on lightbulbs will also save energy.

Now that you know how to save energy, youll be surprised at how easily you can save money!