Doing Things In A New Way

Posted on: 13 March 2017

Running a business means that you often need to think about the big picture and the small picture simultaneously. This, of course, can be a challenge to accomplish and can involve dealing with issues such as environmental impact and energy efficiency on a regular basis. If you are looking to rein in your business's energy use and become more efficient, there are many ways that you can go about accomplishing these goals. Learn a bit more about some of the ways you can improve your business's energy efficiency.

Upgrade Your Commercial Heating and Air Conditioning Systems

One of the biggest uses of energy that your business will have throughout the year is the energy that is required to keep your commercial space at comfortable temperatures. Your heating and air conditioning systems use power and energy every time they are running. Older HVAC systems require more energy than newer ones simply to turn on and run and often do not heat and cool as well as newer systems. This means they have to run longer and harder simply to try to keep up.

As such, one of the best ways to increase your business's energy efficiency is to invest in an upgraded commercial heating and air conditioning system for your commercial space. Look for systems that are Energy Star rated as these systems have been certified to be energy efficient by an independent EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) company. Energy-efficient heating and cooling systems do not need to run as long or use as much power to start up and run as older, less-efficient systems. This is both beneficial to your business's big-picture environmental impact and the smaller picture of your monthly energy bills and costs. For more information, talk with a service like Mercury Tec.

Consider Purchasing Carbon Offsets

If you are not ready to make major changes to your business building and systems, there is another simple way that you can increase your business's energy efficiency. This method is to purchase what are known as carbon offsets for your company. Carbon offsets are essentially a way of balancing out the carbon footprint that your business has.

A carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide that your business operation generates on a regular basis. Many activities generate carbon dioxide that is released into the air, including running machinery, running your HVAC system, driving company vehicles, etc. While you could go through every single process your business does and try to reduce your carbon footprint step by step, this is a major time commitment that you may not be able to make at the moment.

Carbon offsets help with that. You basically buy a certain number of carbon points to counterbalance the carbon that your business produces. Your offsets will go to fund projects that lower and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This means that you will be contributing to projects that cancel out all or part of the energy that you use to run your business, therefore making your business more energy efficient in a global sense. 

Now that you know a few of the ways that you can improve your business's energy efficiency, you can get started making changes as soon as possible.