Go Green! - Environmentally Friendly Tips for Business

Heating/Cooling Tips
Lighting Tips
Hot Water Tips
Office Equipment Tips
Tips for Home Office

Heating/Cooling Tips

Just following these four simple steps can help reduce your heating and cooling costs

• Turn off appliances when not in use - if you have left the office for the day or for the weekend, there is no need to keep heating or cooling running. If you don't like arriving to a cold office in the morning, install an automatic timer that switches heating on half an hour before your arrive.
• Seal all draughts in windows and doors and, where possible, block unnecessary air vents to avoid warm/cool air loss. Leaks like these can add 20% to your heating costs and 15% to your cooling costs.
• Keep doors to little-used rooms closed and don't heat/cool them. If you have a central heating/cooling system, close vents in these rooms where possible. It may be cold in there in winter, but if you're only going in to collect a ream of paper then leaving, does it really need to be fully heated?
• Put on/take off your jumper before you adjust the rooms temperature. Sounds too simple, but it's the little actions like this that many people forget. back to top

Lighting Tips

Lighting is the largest part of the energy bill of most small businesses, and can cost between £500 and £2000 a year. This can easily be cut by up to 50% without having to walk around in the dark!

Whatever types of lighting you use there are ways to reduce your lighting bills without reducing the impact on your premises.

• Turn off lights when they are not required. It's a myth that it's cheaper to leave a light on, even fluorescents.
• Use fluorescent lamps in rooms where the light is on for long periods and replace incandescent globes with compact fluorescent globes.
• Install timer/delay/movement detector switches to turn off lights in rooms only accessed occasionally.
• Use timer switches and movement/daylight sensors for outside lights so they are only on when they are needed.
• Make the most of natural light by placing desks near windows.
• When your current standard bulbs blow, replace them with energy saving bulbs. Just one 75W incandescent bulb replaced by a 17W compact fluorescent bulb will provide the same light and save you £70 a year on your electricity bill.
• Use the lowest wattage light needed to adequately illuminate an area.
• Use task or special purpose lighting to supplement general lighting as required.
• Keep lights and fittings clean.
• Avoid using dichroic spotlights (standard downlights). Energy efficient alternatives are available that provide the same 'look' and light.
• Avoid using multiple globe fittings.
• Avoid having too many lights on one switch - use separate switches for each light and only turn on what you need. back to top

Hot Water Tips

• Keep hot water systems on the lowest thermostat temperature possible. Most units have a dial on the hot water service with 'warm/medium/hot' - 'medium', or just above is adequate for most situations. Large boiling units can cost £375 extra per year in electricity.
• Check to see whether your hot water pipes are insulated between the tank and your taps. If not, or if the insulation is damaged or incomplete, contact a plumber to fix it.
• Check the relief valve on your hot water system every six months. Most have instructions on the side of the unit, or contact a plumber. The relief valve should be replaced every five years to prevent possible hot water leaks and damage to the unit.
• Check that no hot water taps are leaking - this not only wastes water, the hot water service also uses more energy to replace the leaking water. back to top

Office Equipment Tips

Energy costs for office equipment for a small business can be up to £300 a year.

Computers, fax machines, printers and photocopiers are indispensable to running many small businesses today, but the rapid increase in the use of such equipment has seen a steady rise in electricity consumption over the past decade. Cutting your electricity costs will save you money and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The following tips will help you along the way.

• Make sure your equipment is turned off at the powerpoint at night and on weekends, and even during the day when it is not being used for an extended period of time. The will avoid 'phantom draw' through equipment standby mode.
• Use a 7-day programmable timer to ensure equipment is automatically switched off out of hours.
• With your computer, experiment with the delay or default setting to achieve the shortest possible time that's acceptable before the machine goes to 'sleep'.
• Consider printer sharing devices such as a manual printer switch that can route jobs to the printer when the switch is set to receive incoming signals from one of two or more computers.
• Reduce paper consumption by minimising the use of full-page cover sheets for fax transmission. Stick-on labels placed on the first page of a fax mot only reduce the amount of energy and paper used, but can also save on phone charges.
• Look for printers with a double-sided (duplex) printing option.
• ENERGY STAR compliant fax machines can scan double-sided pages. This will reduce both your copying and paper costs - it costs TEN TIMES as much to make a piece of paper as it does to print on it!
• Purchase a photocopier that's the right size for you. A mid-volume copier installed in a low volume office can use 70% more energy per page than an efficient low-volume copier.
• Set your photocopier to automatically default to making two-sided copies to ensure that the duplexing feature is used.
• Run copies together in batches to reduce energy consumption by decreasing the amount of time your copier spends in high-power mode.
• Use recycled paper, preferably with at least 20% post-consumer recycled content.
• Check whether your printer can use recycled toner cartridges to reduce the flow of solid waste that ends up the the nation's landfills. back to top

Tips for Home Office

You may work from home, but you're still in business! Comfort and energy savings can be achieved through the following.

• Check windows are appropriately sited and the correct orientation and size for your needs.
• Select appropriate building materials - high insulation value or, even better, recycled building materials.
• Choose correct levels of insulation, ventilation and draught proofing.
• Choose an appropriately sized premised - it's more costly to heat 40 squares than 20 squares.
• Select and install energy efficient appliances, lighting and heating, cooling and hot water systems.
• Select appropriate thermostat settings for heating and cooling systems for maximum efficiency.
• Closing doors and windows in heated areas.
• Switch off appliances when they are not in use. back to top

Reference: "Why Green Your Business" from the BPMA

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