Saving Energy Helps the Environment and Your Bottom Line

When looking for an edge that will boost your company’s profits, consider energy efficiency. It may not sound sexy or creative, but thousands of small businesses across the country are finding that this earth-friendly business practice does more than make them feel good, it improves their bottom line.

By investing in energy efficiency, companies can often save as much as 20 percent or more on their utility bills. The reduction in energy use helps prevent pollution too. You might be surprised at how simple it is to save energy, and you’ll be glad to know there are some free or low-cost things you can do right away that will reduce your next energy bill.

Getting Started

ENERGY STAR for Small Business helps companies reduce their operating costs by providing free, unbiased information about energy efficiency through its website www.energystar.gov/smallbiz and a toll free help line at 1-888-STAR YES. It’s your source for technical information, success stories, and quick energy-saving tips like the ones below. You don’t have to be a technical whiz to implement some of the energy-efficiency recommendations. In fact, one of the easiest things you can do is to look for the ENERGY STAR label when purchasing new equipment.

Remember when your parents used to say, “turn off the lights!” They were right. Train employees to turn off lights when they leave the room or install motion sensors and you’ll see savings on your energy bill immediately. Consider installing a daylight harvesting system, which integrate compatible lamps, ballasts, and a photosensor to provide automated dimming depending on the amount of natural light available. These will turn off or dim lights when daylight is adequate and help prevent eyestrain and headaches. In fact, too much light can be as bad for visual quality as too little light, and it costs more.

Another easy way for small businesses to tap energy savings is through computer power management. Did you know that most computers are only used an average of four hours each business day? That means the rest of the time they’re left on is a waste of energy and money.

Monitor Power Management

ENERGY STAR’s Monitor Power Management program has free software tools and services that automatically put a computer monitor into a low-power sleep mode when not in use. A simple touch of the mouse or keyboard “wakes” the monitor within seconds.

For businesses with around 100 computers, ENERGY STAR offers EZ Save, which activates monitor power management through the central file server. By devoting a couple hours to EZ Save, a network administrator of a 100-computer organization can reduce enough electricity to annually:

• Save about $2,000 (at 13.6 cents per kWh),
• Light 12 homes, and
• Prevent 21,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

To download EZ Save, go to www.energystar.gov/powermanagement and click on the “EZ Save” link in the upper right hand corner.

Smaller businesses, that do not have a central file server, should ask each employee to use the free ENERGY STAR “EZ Wizard” tool to activate monitor power management on their individual computer. To use EZ Wizard, ask each computer user to:

• Go to www.energystar.gov/powermanagement
• Click on the “EZ Wizard” link in the upper right hand corner
• Click on the “Start EZ Wizard Now” link
• Follow the simple instructions to activate monitor power management

A minor investment in energy efficiency can reduce your energy costs further. Improved lighting, better thermostats, increased insulation and weather-stripping will help you put a dent in those utility bills, as will new, highly efficient motors.

When buying new equipment, small businesses should look for the ENERGY STAR label, which identifies hundreds of energy-efficient office and consumer products. Utility bills drop the minute they are installed. Proper maintenance will protect this investment over the long term. For example, simply tuning up air conditioners -- identifying and sealing duct leaks, checking airflow and refrigerant charge, cleaning coils and changing filters -- can typically reduce energy use by 20 to 30%.

New Victory Theater

The New Victory Theater is reducing its operating costs through energy efficiency. Built in 1900, this is New York’s oldest active theater and it helped establish 42nd Street as the theater district. It is now a “Broadway” family theater, offering live performances to an audience of 500 patrons. To address its energy usage and costs, the Theater had an energy audit done by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and then began to implement its recommendations. One of NYSERDA’s goals is to help small businesses find ways to cut electricity costs as well as provide services from electrical engineers and other experts. Some small companies even qualify for grants of up to $50,000.

First, they replaced all incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and lower wattage PAR lamps. Then, they installed motion sensors where appropriate and replaced incandescent exit signs with highly efficient light-emitting diode (LED) models. They also tuned up the building’s heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, installed programmable thermostats and established a temperature schedule to ensure optimal operation of the systems.