Steps to reduce your carbon footprint and reduce costs:

1. Start by reviewing your direct energy costs, your travel costs and then your indirect supplier costs. You could even extend this further to consider carbon embodied in materials you use.

2. Review your direct energy use – electricity, gas and heating fuel. Identify the areas of greatest usage in your organisation and those which have the highest impact in terms of cost and/or carbon footprint. Use this information to determine the priority for a more detailed review.

3. Assess the usage patterns identified from this data and consider whether they pass the ‘make sense test’. Are seasonal/weekday/hourly/ day vs night variations as you would expect for your business? If not, why not?

a) Is equipment being left on unnecessarily?

b) Is start up and/or shutdown as you would expect?

4. Conduct a detailed site survey to determine which equipment or processes are the most energy-hungry. Consider the following questions:

a) Is that equipment turned off when not in use?

b) Is it energy efficient – by design, maintenance and how it’s used?

c) Is it fit for purpose?

5. Review your organisation’s processes:

a) Would it be possible to cut out any stages in the process without affecting quality?

b) Can the amount of re-work be reduced by improving quality checking?

c) How can your processes be redesigned to improve efficiency?

6. Consider your organisation’s culture:

a) Is your Energy Policy clear and understood by all employees?

b) Is this reflected in their personal targets?

c) Do you have Energy Champions to provide a readily-accessible source of expertise?

d) What do you need to do to encourage all staff to take this seriously and reduce energy consumption wherever they can?

e) Do you have a highly visible and well-used staff suggestion scheme? They will probably have some great ideas about where savings could be found.

7. Consider your organisation’s equipment maintenance and replacement policy:

a) Ensure that energy efficiency is a key element in decision-making regarding replacement kit.

b) Be aware of the whole-of-life costs of any piece of equipment. Do increased energy costs outweigh purchase cost savings?

c) Can existing equipment be made more energy efficient without having to completely replace it?

d) Ensure that equipment is well-maintained, which will keep it more energy efficient as well as prolonging its life.

8. Consider your travel policy:

a) How much do you spend on business travel each year? Include costs such as car leasing, parking, fuel, insurance, air travel and travel management costs.

b) How could these costs be better managed to generate cost reductions? Eg would it be better to have a pool car or company bicycles than company cars?

c) Are all journeys necessary? Could some face-to-face meetings be held using telephone or video conferencing instead? The supporting technology is improving all the time – if you were to reduce the number of business trips by 25%, how much difference would that make in terms of cost reduction and carbon emissions? This is exactly what Vodafone has done, resulting in double digit millions of cost savings. (Source: Tandberg case study)

9. Consider your distribution channels:

a) Do you need to distribute a physical product?

b) Can you reduce the number of journeys or organise them in such a way as to reduce the number of miles travelled?

c) Is the vehicle fleet fuel efficient?

d) Can you minimise packaging and the size of containers without damaging your goods?

10. Consider how you could encourage your suppliers to manage their energy use in a similar way. If this leads to cost reductions for them, they will be able to pass some of this on to you, creating a virtuous circle of benefit.

Domestic UK energy bills are estimated to rise by between 14% and 60% by 2016 according to energy regulator Ofgem. The review also said that up to £200bn of investment was needed to secure supplies and to meet carbon targets. Volatile gas markets and power stations nearing the end of their use were the chief concerns, the regulator said.

The report was the result of Project Discovery, a scheme that Ofgem started in March in which it outlines four possible scenarios for energy use and security in the next 10 to 15 years.

It pointed out the need for investment came at a time of volatile world energy prices and Britain’s increasing dependence on gas imports. This exposure meant that supply disruptions across the world could affect prices. The scenario in which prices could spike by 60% was that of a strong resurgence in global economies, along with missed renewable and carbon targets, and no nuclear facility built before 2020. The report said the cheapest scenario – with a hike in bills of 14% by 2020 – factored in a slow recovery from the recession, coupled with global green stimulus packages. In this option, high carbon prices and government policies would support investment in renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage.

But significant changes are needed in the way energy is generated and consumed, the report added. “These are big challenges. Consumers are already enduring high energy prices,” said Ofgem chief executive Alistair Buchanan. “This is why we are consulting with consumer and environmental groups, the academic community and industry to ensure any policy proposals we make are grounded on the best evidence available. Early action can avoid hasty and expensive measures later.”

Mr Buchanan said that the good news in the report was that emissions would fall by up to 43% from 2005 levels, describing the climate change targets as “very, very tight”.

The report came as the UK was facing the effects of the financial crisis, an acceptance that it was “no longer an energy island”, and that it would see a revolution in the approach of power generation, he added.

Ofgem are concerned that suppliers may change their terms and conditions in the run up to Jan 1st to avoid some or all of the new licence conditions. These are the ones that were originally going to ban ‘rollover’ contracts but following lobbying by the energy companies, have been much watered down. The changes include removing misleading statements on the ‘renewal letter’, making automatic renewals 12 months max and giving customers a cooling off period. Watch this space!

According to today’s BBC report, customers are being overcharged on their annual energy bills, an independent consumer watchdog has said.

Consumer Focus says energy suppliers have not been fully passing on declines in wholesale costs. Crude oil has fallen from $147 a barrel in July last year to about $70.

But the Energy Retail Association says that other costs have gone up and there is no evidence of suppliers increasing prices faster than they reduce them. Consumer Focus says its research, based on applying hedging strategies outlined by the energy regulator Ofgem, shows that energy suppliers are overcharging customers by a combined £1.66bn this year.

But Ofgem, which concluded an investigation into the energy market last year, said it was “entirely confident” in its analysis of wholesale and retail energy prices.

“We cannot accept Consumer Focus’ claim to have used our methodology for calculating wholesale costs. They have borrowed some of it but they appear to have made assumptions that are simply wrong,” the regulator said.

British Gas cut its gas prices by 10% in February and its electricity prices by 10% in May. E.On, EDF Energy, Scottish and Southern, Scottish Power and Npower all lowered their electricity prices by the end of March.

Energy companies argue that bills are not based on wholesale costs alone.

“The amount of gas and electricity a customer uses can form as little as half their annual bill,” said Garry Felgate from the Energy Retail Association. “The remainder includes other costs, such as transporting gas and power around the country and meeting the government’s carbon emissions reductions targets. All these costs have risen sharply in recent years. Consumer Focus has ignored these facts during its research.”

The Times reports on Incentives for investing in green energy!
Ministers were last night considering fresh incentives designed to spur investment in renewable energy amid evidence that the credit crunch is threatening government energy targets.

The Energy Minister hit back at claims that the Government was failing to deliver on an ambitious plan to foster a green energy revolution by building thousands of onshore and offshore wind turbines. Mike O’Brien told a meeting of renewable-energy chiefs that he was determined that Britain would meet its goal of generating as much as 35 per cent of all UK electricity from wind, wave and solar power by 2020, up from less than 5 per cent at present.

Responding to news of a further collapse in financing for the UK wind industry, he said that the Government was examining new ideas to increase investment, which has been hit by the recession as banks rein in lending and the price of conventional fuels plunges.

Mr O’Brien said: “We are fully aware of the investment challenges facing some parts of the industry. We are examining how we can help ensure there is sufficient finance and other support available for viable projects which are short of the investment they need.” Mr O’Brien was speaking after The Times revealed yesterday that Iberdrola Renovables, the Spanish energy company that is the world’s largest investor in wind energy, plans to cut its UK investments in renewable electricity this year by up to 40 per cent from as high as €700 million in 2008 to €400 million

Doug Parr, the chief scientist of Greenpeace, said the UK renewables industry was moving “at a snail’s pace” and called for urgent action by the Government to accelerate its plans for a green energy revolution.

“It really is a case of getting off their backsides and doing what they said they were going to do,” Dr Parr said.

Lifting the UK’s share of renewable electricity generation to 35 per cent will cost an estimated £100 billion, but a string of investments have collapsed in recent months because of the credit crunch. Onshore wind energy generated only 1.14 per cent of UK electricity in 2007 and offshore wind accounted for only 0.2 per cent. Hydroelectric schemes, some of which were built decades ago, accounted for the biggest single slice at about 1.3 per cent.

“No sector is immune from the economic downturn, and that includes the energy sector,” Mr O’Brien said. “To meet our commitments on renewables, we have changed the planning laws and increased support for the sector.

“We also are working with National Grid and Ofgem to ensure sufficient access to the grid and we very much welcome the announcement last week about the timetable for an extra 450MW of grid connection.”

Meanwhile, a skills shortage in nuclear engineering is threatening the Government’s hopes that new nuclear plants will be operating by 2020, a Commons committee says today in a report. Many of the engineers working in the industry are approaching retirement and not enough young people are being trained. Failure to increase the number of qualified engineers entering the nuclear field will leave Britain dependent on foreign experts, who are already in great demand abroad.

Expressing concern at the “lack of a clear and detailed plan for delivering the next generation of nuclear power stations”, MPs on the Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee called for ministers to create a “master road map” for all big engineering projects to address issues such as the numbers of engineers available.

Phil Willis, the chairman of the committee, said: “If there’s a great drive postrecession to deliver on civil nuclear power, we will be competing in a small pool for that talent. The difficulty then is delivering on time at a cost we can afford.”

The report says that the Government is neglecting the potential of geoengineering to limit climate change if a greenhouse gas treaty cannot be reached.