Now that technology has fully permeated modern businesses, a growing number of organizations are looking for ways to use it to help reduce their carbon footprints and energy bills at the same time.
Advanced enterprise software has helped to improve a variety of business functions and dramatically decrease operating costs, but companies are still spending billions of dollars a year on energy costs and putting a major strain on the environment. A new report conducted by Forbes Insights and EnerNOC revealed just how many resources are being wasted by U.S. organizations each year.
According to the study, many businesses spend up to $500 million on energy annually. For commercial or industrial companies with annual revenue of $10 billion, between 3 and 5 percent of that is spent on energy costs. Despite such steep power bills, most senior executives don’t know how much of their money goes towards paying for energy. Just as decision-makers often aren’t aware of the cost of energy, neither are employees. This lack of information leads to large-scale waste. The report discovered that commercial and industrial organizations spend $60 billion annually on unnecessary energy costs due to waste.
Many people are quick to suggest that newer, more eco-friendly and energy efficient building methods will solve this problem, but nearly 85 percent of the commercial sites that exist in the U.S. today will still be around in 2030, so that is not an immediate answer. The authors of the report had a different suggestion: Implement energy intelligence software that helps to reduce waste and save money.
“Technology has been incredibly effective at increasing productivity and reducing operating costs across business functions within the enterprise – using energy intelligence software for energy management is no different,” said Tim Healy, chairman and CEO of EnerNOC.
New software offers an easy way to save energy
Turning off equipment when it’s not being used can decrease energy use by 25 percent, and making sure electronic devices are off when employees leave for the day can save twice that much. However, most employees don’t consider the amount of energy they’re using by leaving their computer on when the leave for lunch or go home for the day, so it can be hard to encourage them to follow this rule. Luckily, power management tools like Faronics Power Save can help.
With Power Save, activity on a variety of endpoints can be monitored, allowing the devices to go into a more energy efficient mode without disrupting users. The program also provides detailed reporting on enterprise energy use, making it easier to project savings and identify pain points.
