Energy Management and Carbon Reduction

Energy audits

The first step towards reducing energy usage is to know how much you use. If you measure your energy usage, you are then able to make informed choices about how best to manage and reduce your consumption. An energy audit analyses energy flows in a building, process or system with the objective of understanding how energy is used and to seek opportunities to improve efficiency and reduce wastage.

Low Carbon Futures offers two types of energy auditing services:

General Energy Audit

A simple, quick (typically 1-2 days) audit that involves a brief review of the previous 12 months utility bills and a visual survey of the site. An action plan, and outline estimates of implementation costs, potential savings, and likely payback periods are provided in the summary report.

Detailed Energy Audit

A detailed energy audit will cover all the elements of a general audit but will include more in-depth analyses of the energy usage and the opportunities available to reduce consumption and costs.

The audit will include:

A site assessment listing all energy consuming equipment
Information on the appropriate controls/operational hours of the equipment
An energy profile for the site(s)
Additional metering of specific energy-consuming systems to supplement utility data when required
Interviews with personnel to provide a better understanding of short and longer term energy consumption patterns

Consideration will be given in any proposal to the finances available and payback periods for any technologies outlined in the audit report.

Carbon Footprinting

Low Carbon Futures will help you measure, manage and reduce your carbon footprint, whether you want to look at your whole businesses footprint or undertake an in-depth product footprint.
We aim to make this process as straightforward as possible, as it can provide exciting businesses opportunities and lead to additional benefits for your business, including:

Improved resource management and therefore a reduction in your operating costs
Improved staff engagement and involvement in your company’s carbon profile
Enabling your organisation to meet future carbon related legislation and to demonstrate that your business is willing to act responsibly

At Low Carbon Futures we offer two types of carbon footprinting services:

Company Carbon Footprint

Assesses the total direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from your business activities. Low Carbon Futures will assist you in the data collection process and provide you with expert advice on the most efficient method of data collection and recording. The next step will be to develop a carbon action plan to reduce your carbon emissions and therefore environmental impacts.

Product Carbon Footprint

This service measures the embodied GHG emissions of your product. Embodied GHG emissions are those emissions associated with the life cycle of a product. An example of how this can help promote carbon awareness with you customers is the carbon label printed on a packet of cheese and onion Walkers crisps.

Energy Management Programme

The Energy Management Programme allows organisations that are not quite large enough to employ an Energy Manager to receive ongoing support. Low Carbon Futures can work with you to ensure that all those actions that your organisation would like to implement come to fruition, and you start saving money.

The very nature of this service means that it is quite specific and customised to your company's size and activities. For example, you may require one of our advisers for one day a week for three months, or two days a month for twelve months.

The types of service we can provide include:

Resource efficiency (energy, water, waste) audits
Carbon footprinting
Energy management and reduction
Project management
Carbon reduction action plans
Overseeing renewable energy installations
Staff training