Friday 5 March 2021

Podcast: Do what you do at home, at work

Steve Pick says smaller business owners should think of their offices and workplaces, the same as they think of their homes, when it comes to energy efficiency measures

He runs energy management propositions for SMEs for British Gas and has been in the energy sector for more than 20 years. Steve believes the messaging around energy efficiency and net zero has for too long bypassed the SME and mid-market sector.

“I think the past year has made a larger proportion of businesses want to find out what, if anything, they can do to help both moneywise and planet wise.

“For those of us in rented premises, that perception barrier exists that it’s too big and it’s too costly. The other one is the lease term means you’re not going to invest in changes.”

He believes we can all take a lesson from what we do at home in the domestic sector. Steve cites the rollout of smart meters and measures like LEDs which we can see in our houses but don’t consider enough for our businesses.

“If you can’t measure it you can’t control it. One thing we can all do as an industry and as a country, is make smart meter data come to life a bit more for business users. Give them that granularity, not just chuck dashboards and graphs at customers.

“But actually tell them what patterns we see in the data and tell the customers, did you expect to be using so much say after 9pm?”

“Having good data will point you in the first place to investigate and to change.”

If you haven’t got smart meters in your business, Steve suggests installing a network of sensors which are now really cost-effective.

“A sensor tells you whereabouts you’re using your energy. We should help get the right info for the time precious business owner – pull out the right bits of data to help them.”

He also says one of the simple things to do is get an energy audit, which can even be done virtually over the phone or internet.

“Just do a call for 30 mins and if the business owner shows off their machinery, talks about what you have, boilers etc it enables us to build an energy audit, to build a picture of your business.”

In short whatever size of business, you can make a difference to your bottom line by saving energy.

If you’d like to contact Steve - Steve.Pick@britishgas.co.uk.