6 simple steps to help your flexible workplace mitigate rising energy costs!

When it comes to energy pricing in the next couple months, costs are set to shoot up and it looks like they’ll be here for a while…

It’s not just domestic homes that will be affected but businesses too, commercial premises up and down the land. But is there anything that can be done NOW to try and mitigate the impact of this? I’ve been exploring this from the context of the flexible workspace industry but a lot will also be relevant to workplaces in general…..

As a member of Flexsa, the industry body for the flexible workspace sector I was recently invited to attend a webinar given by Enexus Energy. Although these prices changes are clearly going to cause serious ramifications to businesses there are simple steps that can be taken now to offset some of the burden. Here’s a summary of some of the key, positive takeaways from the webinar:

Simple steps to consider for flexible workspaces…

1. Be proactive in the marketplace, have a clear understanding of your energy consumption & your contract renewal dates. Timing is the single most important factor in determining your prices.
2. Switch to LED lighting & put in motion sensors to prevent lights from being left on, there’s a huge energy saving from this alone.
3. Get employees & members on board with what you’re trying to achieve & outline the benefits to everyone involved
4. Hold green weeks with teams and members
5. Education has a very positive impact with participation
6. Motivational posters outlining behavioural changes including:

• Take the stairs rather than the lift to save energy (plus wellbeing benefits)
• Switch off the office lights, computers, devices before you go home
• Wash up those dishes by hand rather than putting on the dishwasher multiple times

Given time and investment….

Something worth considering is investment into more efficient heating / air conditioning systems and / or insulation upgrades. However, works of this nature may require input from a building’s specialist such as a buildings services engineer. The UK government has now put tax incentives in place to encourage investment in sustainability improvements but, in the world of tax, which can be complicated, each case needs to be considered on its own merits.

Of course, there are lots of other factors to take into consideration and lots more that can be done to mitigate costs given time and investment. Regardless of this, it’s worth exploring whether there are simple things that can be taken now to mitigate some of the impact.

If you’d like some help on how to map out transformations for your flexible workspace then you can book a discovery call with me here.

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