An area of efficiency that businesses sometimes forget, however, concerns the invisible resource known as energy. If your building or business relies on machinery, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, ventilation or other similar elements, it also relies on the energy you’re using. Energy efficiency has therefore become a significant part of modern real estate management, facilities management and operations strategy. In part, this has come to the fore due to government campaigns on the environmental responsibilities of businesses – by cutting down on energy usage, UK plc helps reduce the damaging gases affecting the environment. Recent hikes in energy costs have also had an impact, and businesses are waking up to how much their bills are making a difference to their bottom line.

Companies and building service managers can now profit from smart energy systems that help to increase efficiencies. Controls systems manage the output of operations such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning. You can pick up models that utilise user-friendly interfaces (so you don’t need an expert to monitor what’s going on); you can check operations statistics over the web; you can even get an offsite management company to do the monitoring for you.

So, what are some of the key benefits of installing a controls system?

Reducing energy bills
Reducing energy bills is the obvious one. Although, what might not be quite so obvious is that saving on energy bills has a real effect on a business’ bottom line. The Carbon Trust suggests that a 20% energy saving – which is realistically achievable by most companies – has a similar positive effect to a 5% increase in sales.

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