Introduction
Recent events have put extra strain on many business and individual budgets over the last few months. One way to help alleviate the strain is to cut out or reduce excess expense. This week we will focus on reducing energy consumption which could have a twofold benefit of reduced costs and reducing your environmental footprint.
Monday- Why should we reduce our energy consumption?
Having proper motivation is critical to completing a project. Let’s look at a few of the benefits of reducing energy consumption in your business.
- Protect the environment. We all want a healthy planet for our future generations. Reducing energy usage helps improve air emissions, conserves limited natural resources like fossil fuels, and helps make positive strides in conserving the overall ecosystem.
- Save money. Energy costs often take a large portion of any business’s budget. Reducing energy is a simple way to reduce wasted funds.
- Improve the image of your company. Today’s society is moving more and more towards supporting green initiatives. Demonstrating your efforts towards these causes could result in increased favor with your consumer base.
Tuesday – Getting Started
The most difficult part of any endeavor is often just getting started. Today we will discuss helpful ways to launch your energy reduction initiative.
- Form a team of individuals from different areas of the business that can provide unique prospective on energy consumption.
- Conduct an energy audit to help identify how much energy is actually being used and areas for improvement.
- Establish corrective actions and implement in your workplace.
- Regularly reinforce the improved practices and share success with colleagues. Sustaining improvements is often the trickiest part!
Wednesday – Tips for Conducting an Energy Audit
Performing an energy audit provides a good launching point and provides guidance for your team in the energy conservation process. Today we will discuss best practices for conducting an energy audit.
- Assess
- Bill analysis: what prcesses are accumulating the highest energy costs?
- Measure
- Inspect yur equipment: does your site have outdated equipment consuming unnecessary energy?
- Identify and priritize issues
- Evaluate
- Evaluate yur devices, could they be replaced with energy efficient devices?
- Analysis yur saving opportunities
- Improve
- Implement crrective actions
- Eliminate/reduce wasted energy
- Validate
- Quantify the impact f your improvements
- Cmpare before and after
- Cmpare results with your goals
Thursday – Tips for Energy Saving
Today we will discuss a few useful tips for saving energy in the workplace that everyone can put into practice immediately to start your journey in energy conservation.
- Use natural light when possible and turn off artificial lights when the room is not being used.
- Switch off computers and other equipment when not in use.
- Unplug equipment when not in use over holidays or long weekends. Electrical devices continue to drain energy when plugged in even if they are turned off.
- Regularly maintain your HVAC system, a poorly operating system can cause a huge inefficiency for energy usage.
Friday – Open Discussion
This week we’ve discussed the why of implementing an energy conservation project, provided tips for getting started, shared best practices for conducting an energy audit and we’ve talked about tips for quick ways to implement energy savings in your workplace. Now let’s hear your thoughts on ways we could be more energy efficient in our workplace.
- Is energy efficiency important to you? Why or why not?
- Has your company started any energy saving initiatives? If yes, what has been done so far?
- What ideas do you have around ways to save energy in your department?
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Tags: environmental , environment , energy consumption , reduction , energy ,
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