Commercial Blog

While climate science is alarming (suggesting just 10 years left to limit warming below the dangerous 1.5 degree level), it presents an opportunity for businesses to step up where governments have made little progress. Sustainability can give your company an edge and set you apart as a leader in your industry.

You may see it as a moral urge to reduce your business carbon footprint. Or perhaps it’s the long term financial savings that appeal. Either way, it makes sense to be a step ahead of future regulations which are likely to penalise polluters.

According to a Nielsen survey, 81% of customers think it is ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important that companies act to improve the environment - so there’s a great commercial imperative to engage in climate action too.

But where do you start? We’ve broken down the question of how to reduce your company’s carbon footprint into five key topics to help you create an actionable plan.

We’ve recently done some modelling of the performance of solar tracking systems, but this can only tell you so much. What about how one would perform in the real world? Luckily we can answer that by looking at a solar tracker that we installed a few years ago...

Is it possible to get free solar panels for businesses? A lot has changed since solar first started gaining popularity, with prices falling around 50% in the last decade and many of the initial subsidies like the Feed-in Tariff closed to new applicants. But there are still opportunities for companies to benefit from financed solar systems, the most promising of which are Solar PPAs.

We hear more and more about Blockchain technology.  The technology creates a transparent public ledger that records series of transactions, facilitating a fast, low-cost, trusted transfer of value without the involvement of traditional intermediaries.  

Already used in the financial sector, it’s only a matter of time before Blockchain hits the energy sector in a major way, particularly with the explosion of micro-generation of electricity, the ending of solar subsidies, and the advent of smart meters.

With Octopus Energy claiming to have paid customers to use excess electricity at night on four occasions in the last 12 months, real time peer-to-peer trading of electricity is surely just around the corner. Other potential applications include authentication of renewable generation and trading of emissions permits.

On 9^th July, the government launched its “Road to Zero Strategy” to lead the world in zero emission vehicle technology.

Not to be confused with any other ‘Road to Zero’ or ‘Round in Circle’ government strategies, this one is all about ensuring at least 50% of cars are ultra-low emission by 2030, and ensuring that the infrastructure is in place to support this.

If you’re in charge of a ‘workplace’, the good news is that on the back of Road to Zero, the Workplace Charging Scheme will now contribute 75% of purchase and installation costs (up to a maximum of £500) towards the cost of each charging socket installed. 

The grant is available for to 20 chargepoints per applicant, across all sites.

In other words, up to £10,000 per business.

The Green Business Fund, administered by the Carbon Trust, provides a non-refundable capital contribution to cover 15% of project costs, up to £5,000 towards the cost of energy efficiency measures such as LED lighting upgrades and solar PV.

But .... the fund is finite and latest forecasts suggest that it will run out in Autumn 2018.  If you are considering implementing a lighting upgrade project, or installing solar PV, and want to benefit from the £5,000 giveaway.. it really is now or never.....

Are you responsible for a commercial property or a commercial / residential property portfolio? Or are you an architect, specifier, commercial end user, engineer, contractor or consultant seeking to learn more about solar PV or battery storage?

If so you many be interested in our FREE CPD accredited training courses.

Upgrading to LED lighting typically halves your lighting bill.

If you install lighting controls at the same time (occupancy sensors etc), you can reduce running costs by around 70%, particularly if half your office is empty, but all your lights are on.

Spirit Energy has this week launched an online LED Lighting Calculator to enable you to see very quickly how much energy, and money, you could save, and how long it would take a lighting upgrade to pay for itself.

Where are the easy wins for your organisation?

By 2020, a business with 100 employees can expect to have 10 employees with an electric car. 

Time flies, and guess what, 2020 is only 22 months away...... No surprise then that many businesses are making their first foray into the world of electric car chargers to give their customers, staff and fleet the necessary EV charging infrastructure. 

As they do so, they are realising that EV charging not only represents an opportunity to make their business a better place to work for employees and boost their CSR credentials, it also provides a potential new revenue stream, albeit a modest one unless installed at scale (click here for a brief summary of the business case).

The question is, if you want to install EV chargers at work, what functionality should you look for, and which brand should you choose?

Following on from our previous blog detailing Carbon Trust's Green Business Fund, we have recently become aware of other (EU-funded) free handouts for SME's looking to enhance their green credentials AND reduce their bills!