Business Guide to Energy and Environment

Energy and environment are inextricably linked for business purposes. If your company produces or uses energy, it is required to conform to regulatory requirements regarding environmental impacts and must manage critical public sentiment. Businesses today are expected to have an environmental management plan that decreases the impact of the company's activities on the environment and promotes energy efficiency. If your company neglects to take a proactive stance on issues regarding energy and environment, it may end up on the wrong end of new regulations and with a negative public image as a business that does not care about preserving the world's resources for future generations.

Benefits

Cut Energy Usage

The most obvious advantage of energy and environment management is the ability to reduce the amount of energy that your business uses. Studies show that proper energy management can cut energy usage by up to 30 percent. This is good for a couple of reasons. First, when your business uses less energy, it also cuts down on the amount of money needed to sustain long-term use of that energy. Secondly, your company becomes more independent and environmentally responsible.

The Long-term Results

It is often the case that business owners, especially new business owners, favor short-term, immediate benefits over long-term ones. Most green technology seems intimidating to businesses due to its high initial cost to implement. Most of this technology is new or just coming into its own. This high cost is a huge deterrent to many, but such technology is concerned with long-term benefits, not short-term costs. Some of these benefits are difficult to quantify. Green roofs and solar panels are two such forms of technology. Each has a high initial cost, but offers huge benefits that will only reveal themselves as time goes by.

Clean for Everyone

Your business shares the Earth with every other human being. Many consumers specifically look for businesses that have made advances toward proper energy and environment management, while others will not restrict themselves but would still feel better about conducting their business with an environmentally responsible company. Making the move toward environmental support is indicative of a mature, responsible business that more customers will want to deal with.

Get Some Help

Implementing energy and environment protocols does not have to be done alone. The global shift toward full integration of clean, reusable fuels has prompted an explosion of environment management consultants to help your business on its way to becoming environmentally conscious and meeting federal regulations. These consultants will have an upfront fee attached to their services, but they will also be able to analyze your business’ past spending on maintenance and utilities and point out areas that your company could save money, time, or effort by upgrading to more energy and environment friendly technology and cutting down on inefficient energy usage.

Pitfalls

Increasing Regulatory Demands

A business that marries energy and environment can face a number of pitfalls that are endemic to the energy industry and environmental policy. Energy production relies on strategic environmental management, which is heavily regulated in most countries. Recent trends are in the direction of stiffening environmental controls worldwide. If your business operates in the energy and environment arenas, you must be prepared to comply with changing governmental regulations that can significantly impact your bottom line at any time. In some countries, environmental policy changes with every change in the country's major political offices.

Unforeseen Occurrences

Running a business that relies on both energy and environment as strategic inputs and outputs can face catastrophic business loss due to unforeseen occurrences. Recent natural disasters have devastated the energy industry in certain countries and destroyed the natural environment. The government controls that are adopted to bring a country's industries and environment back into sync can decimate your profitability for the foreseeable future if your business is caught in such a situation. Energy companies can also experience catastrophic breakdowns that are a result of human errors or issues with subcontractors that cause environmental disasters. Your company would be responsible for cleaning up any environmental contamination and compensating people affected. When dealing with energy and environment, the liability can be in the billions of dollars.

Public Perception

People tend to feel strongly about their environment, and public perception often equates environmental contamination with serious health problems. Energy production is perceived as dangerous to the people living nearby, even though those same people benefit enormously from convenient and plentiful energy production. Your business will likely face a constant public relations battle if your operations straddle energy and environment. It is a battle that most companies cannot win. Your environmental management plan can only mitigate public perception, regardless of the amount of money your company spends to conduct operations according to regulatory standards. If an unavoidable accident happens that damages the environment, you can easily find yourself back at square one in the eyes of the public and your business completely regulated out of the market in a matter of months.

Pricing

The total cost of a project that focuses on energy and environment issues depends on what will be done. A small business may be able to optimize its energy consumption by spending a few hundred dollars on more efficient appliances or better insulation. A more sizable company may want to take on larger projects, like switching to renewable energy sources, training employees to make behavioral changes, or remodeling buildings to be more efficient.

These types of initiatives vary in cost, but they almost always lead to a positive return on investment. According to ENERGY STAR, most companies can reduce their utility bills by 30 percent or more by implementing an energy efficiency project.

Conclusion

Your business can take a proactive approach to issues involving energy and environment. There are benefits to being a responsible business citizen in these areas that include decreased liability for environmental impacts and positive public sentiment. Energy and environment are two areas that have pitfalls that can damage the most conscientious business. Unforeseen occurrences can put your business right in the middle of an environmental disaster. Changing regulations can impact your profitability with each new governmental administration. Having an environmental management plan in place that promotes efficiency and conservation is key to surviving as a company that relies on energy and environment as operational inputs and outputs.