Every business owner should try their very best to make their commercial building energy efficient. There are two reasons for this. The first one is, of course, environmental. Every single one of us should try to preserve the environment. The second reason is a financial one. Making sure your building is energy efficient is a financially viable strategy. By doing so you are taking care of the environment and saving a lot of money. It’s responsible and smart. Since we’ve established this, let’s see how you can make your commercial building energy efficient. Here are some tips.
Measure Your Consumption
As we already mentioned, being energy efficient is a great way to take care of nature and save some money. However, this is not a simple task. There are a lot of things you should consider and the first one is your energy consumption. Measure your consumption and find out where you can improve your energy efficiency.
Install Energy Efficient Lighting
Other than heating and cooling, lighting represents one of the most important aspects of energy consumption in a commercial building. Let’s face it, your workers are spending most of the day in the office. This means the lights are on for ten to fifteen hours a day. In other words, you are spending a lot of money on lighting. However, this is a necessary cost because your workers require perfect conditions to work. What can you do? Well, you can install energy-efficient lighting to reduce the costs. One of the best ways to do this is by using occupancy sensors. This way the lights will be on only when someone is in the room. In case you don’t like this strategy, you can opt for some low energy consuming lighting. For example, you can install fluorescent, incandescent, halogen, or LED lighting. Every single one of these options is good because they will help you to cut down the costs and provide your workers with a pleasant working environment. When it comes to energy-efficient lighting, a lot of business owners are trusting BUCK industrial lighting. This is an important aspect of your building, so don’t be hasty and make the right decisions.
Invest in Insulation
As you probably know, the outside walls of your building should be specifically designed to reduce heating and cooling requirements. Heating and cooling are responsible for most of your costs. Therefore, if you want to cut down the energy costs, you should definitely invest in high-quality insulation.
You can do this in two ways – by acquiring high-performance insulation or by using non-traditional wall systems. The second one offers additional insulation and it’s very popular these days. Also, replacing the old doors and windows with new ones to prevent air leaks in your office is definitely one of the best investments you can make. Insulating your building will reduce your energy costs, but it will also preserve the environment. This will make you feel like you are making an important difference.
Buy Certified Equipment
It doesn’t matter what line of work you are in, buying low energy consuming equipment is important if you want to cut down the energy costs. Do your research and buy only the computers and devices that don’t use too much power. They might be a bit more expensive than regular computers, but this strategy will pay off, trust us.
Educate and Inform Your Workers
There are a lot of practical ways to lower your costs and make your building energy-efficient. However, this will all be for nothing if you don’t educate and inform your workers. They have to know how to be energy-efficient and how to use the new certified devices. Monitor their behavior, have regular meetings and trainings. This way, they will learn how to consume less energy and you will save a lot of money on bills. Remember, communication is key in this case.
Conclusion
When it comes to being energy-efficient, one of the main motives should be cutting down costs. However, in this day and age, we also must take care of our environment. As a business owner, you have the power and the responsibility to make a difference. Making your commercial building energy-efficient is not a simple task, but it’s doable. All you need to do is conduct thorough research and educate your workers. We hope our article will help you to achieve this goal, improve your business, save some money, and make the world a better place to live.
