While the Government presented an energy sobriety plan on October 6, 2022, many companies are still struggling to put in place concrete actions to reduce their daily energy consumption. Here we are going to offer you some examples that have an immediate impact on the power consumption of your business. We will then explain to you why it is important to involve your employees in this process.
Reducing energy consumption in business with concrete actions
While some actions to reduce energy consumption may involve complex work or a general questioning of the work environment, others are very easy to apply. Here are a few examples of simple actions that have an immediate impact on your energy spending.
Adjust the heating and air conditioning properly
It is important that the indoor temperature is pleasant for your employees to feel good. However, it is not necessary to have a temperature that is too high in winter, or too low in summer.
For a suitable temperature, set your devices to 19°C in winter for occupied rooms and 16°C at night. In summer, if the outside air is fresh, just open the windows. Use the air conditioning only in case of hot weather, respecting a maximum difference of 6°C with the outside temperature. Remember to close the doors if you decide to use heating or air conditioning.
Use lights wisely
It is important to turn off the lights in unoccupied rooms, especially in the evenings and weekends. Minimize the lighting outside of your buildings, including advertising displays.
To improve the energy efficiency of your lights, deploy LEDs or energy-saving bulbs.
Reducing digital consumption
In many companies, digital technology is a major source of energy expenditure. To reduce your consumption:
- Set devices to be on standby or off when not in use.
- Limit your equipment to what is needed.
- Optimize your uses thanks to best practices: ecodesign, compression, etc.
Supporting sustainable mobility
A significant part of the carbon footprint of companies is linked to the movement of employees to their workplace. So try to put in place actions to encourage them to use soft mobility: bike, bus, or even carpooling.
Incentives can be financial, with a company participating in the payment of a public transport package or with a bicycle mileage allowance (IKV).
Raising awareness among employees
Making your employees aware of environmental issues is essential if you want them to commit themselves to greater energy efficiency in companies on a daily basis.
To do this, you can set up workshops, create a newsletter, organize a theme day, etc. The important thing is to find ways to explain to employees the need to apply these small daily actions.
Engaging employees in a low-energy approach
Good news for businesses: many employees are already sensitive to environmental issues. It is therefore natural that they are ready to commit to reducing energy consumption within their company. As with your CSR policies, do not hesitate to give them the means to take concrete action. Here are some tips for doing that.
Give employees a voice on this type of subject
The first thing to do is let your employees have their say on this subject. To do this, you can create a dedicated space yourself in which everyone can write down their ideas in favor of CSR for example. Various tools can help you formalize this, in order to prevent ideas from getting lost and never being realized.
You then have to Give your employees the means to act in favor of these energy sobriety approaches. It is not enough to have ideas, it is also necessary that they have the time and the financial resources to make them a reality. It may also be essential to support them in the realization of their projects if they are not used to carrying out this type of action on a large scale.
If you provide enough resources for employees to implement their ideas, you will see that the results can be very fast.
Set up a tool dedicated to engagement
To facilitate the creation of projects on the part of your employees, it can be very interesting to choose a tool dedicated to engagement. Teamstarter is a good example: this crowdfunding platform has allowed many companies to set up CSR projects created by the employees themselves.
The principle is simple: the company allocates a monthly budget to each employee. He can then choose which project he wants to invest this money in. Proposals are put forward by other collaborators, who are responsible for carrying out their action once they have collected the necessary amount.
Projects can take different forms and focus on a variety of themes. Actions in favor of the environment are particularly popular, because they speak to the greatest number of people.
The Soft At Home example to reduce energy consumption
Soft At Home has chosen to set up Teamstarter. Alexandre Fourey, an employee of the company, proposed a project on the platform in order to reduce energy consumption. The project was strongly supported by the other employees, since a third of them mobilized!
The action consisted in installing power meters on electrical sockets in order to make employees aware of their consumption. Electrical sockets with switches were then installed so that everyone could better control their consumption according to the time they were present in the premises. Alexandre took advantage of coaching from the Teamstarter team to successfully implement his idea: a real asset for the success of his project.
Through this concrete case, the company was able to show that it was capable of taking action for the environment, but above all of mobilizing its employees in this approach.
Energy efficiency is now crucial for businesses: it is essential to implement concrete actions to reduce energy consumption. While some actions can easily be carried out by organizations themselves, others can be implemented by employees. CSR issues are becoming more and more important for them, so do not hesitate to rely on their ideas and commitment to generate concrete actions in favor of energy sobriety.
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