The benefits
The benefits for businesses from the implementation of energy efficiency measures include:
Reduction of operating costs, while increasing turnover: Intervening in energy costs with actions that either reduce consumption (insulation, heating – cooling systems, etc.) or contribute to energy production (netmetering), in combination with other factors, can help businesses achieve a significant reduction in operating costs and consequently increase their profitability.
Enhancing competitiveness: By reducing energy costs, businesses gain a strong competitive advantage, which affects the quality and price of their products and services. A business that manages to reduce energy costs either by making more rational use of existing sources or by using alternative ones, can afford to share this gain with its customer base. If this is combined with enhanced quality, it could help your company capture market share from competitors.
Energy security: Proper use and selection of appropriate energy resources allows businesses to plan for the future and set goals that will lead to sustainable growth. In an environment where ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) performance is becoming increasingly important, it’s clear that sustainability should be a top priority for businesses, for reasons not so much of compliance as of survival.
How to achieve energy efficiency
Energy efficiency is clearly very important for the future of a business. The need for improvement in this direction is more urgent in the case of small and micro enterprises, which are very likely to have incomplete energy management systems, as well as greater difficulty in accessing finance.
From small changes in everyday life, such as adjusting the thermostat of the air conditioning system no lower than 26°C in summer, and turning off office equipment in areas and hours where there are no employees, to larger-scale ones, such as replacing the fleet of vehicles with low-consumption ones or insulating the building shell in order to make it “greener”, businesses have at their disposal a multitude of interventions that can help them meet their energy efficiency targets.
Regarding financing, there are programs available, funded either entirely by banks or in cooperation with Greek and European Agencies , which support such "green" efforts.
Even though the journey to green seems inevitable going forward, one thing is certain: no business can become energy efficient if it’s not determined to leave behind mindsets of the past, focus on the benefits instead of the costs, and understand that its future depends on present action, which must be as green as possible. For its customers, but also for the community as a whole.
Sources: 1 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/