How to make your business more energy efficient
A checklist for improving commercial energy efficiency.
Improving energy efficiency for businesses isn’t just about cutting costs – it helps to reduce carbon emissions, identify operational inefficiencies, and can even improve staff comfort.
Whether you manage a single office or multiple commercial sites, taking steps to improve energy efficiency in business operations can deliver long-term financial and environmental benefits.
In this guide, we provide a checklist of practical ways to boost business energy efficiency.
1. Understand your energy use
The steps outlined below can help address some of the most common causes of energy waste. However, if you’re looking for a more detailed understanding, a professional audit can provide deeper insight.
A business energy audit assesses your existing energy assets, usage patterns and operational processes to identify where improvements can be made. Good Energy’s partner, Green Wing Energy Solutions, offers comprehensive energy audits, followed by a detailed report with tailored recommendations to help improve efficiency and reduce costs.
2. Reduce heat loss
Heat loss is one of the biggest causes of unnecessary energy costs in commercial buildings. While it’s important to keep facilities comfortable, warm air escaping forces your heating to work harder – driving up bills. To reduce heat loss and improve business energy efficiency, consider the following:
- Installing a smart meter to gain more accurate, real-time insight into your business’ energy usage. This data can help you spot patterns, identify waste and track the impact of efficiency measures, and they’re often free to install.
- Draught proof your premises by blocking gaps with draught excluders, draught tape, and/or window film. These low-cost fixes can deliver immediate savings, particularly in older buildings.
- Insulate hot water tanks, boilers and pipework to prevent heat escaping before it reaches where it’s needed. This is especially important in plant rooms and basements.
- Fit heating reflectors behind radiators and ensure the area around them is unobstructed by furniture or equipment, allowing heat to circulate more effectively around the space.
Top tip: Regular servicing of boilers, heaters and air conditioning units helps systems run more efficiently, reduces the risk of breakdowns and can prevent costly repairs.
3. Optimise your heating controls
Heating systems are often left running longer or hotter than necessary, particularly in commercial buildings with multiple zones or irregular occupancy. Optimising your heating controls helps prevent energy being used when and where it isn’t needed. To avoid wasting energy on unnecessary heating:
- Set smart heating controls or create calendar reminders to update your heating controls as the seasons change.
- Ahead of bank holidays or planned closures, check that heating and air conditioning systems are turned down or switched off to avoid heating empty buildings.
- Set a lower temperature in higher activity zones such as corridors, stairwells or loading zones, where people generate more body heat and spend less time.
- Consider installing a heat pump to generate cleaner electricity, far more efficiently than traditional gas boilers. Learn more here.
Top tip: While regulations suggests minimum workplace temperatures of at least 16°C (or 13°C if the work involves a lot of physical effort), staff comfort is key. Temperatures that are technically compliant but uncomfortable can affect employee wellbeing and productivity.
4. Use lighting efficiently
Improving how and when lighting is used can deliver quick wins for commercial energy efficiency with minimal disruption. To improve your energy efficiency when it comes to lighting:
- Install lighting controls such as timers and sensors in spaces that don’t need continuous lighting (e.g. meeting rooms, corridors, storage areas and toilets).
- Switch to energy efficient LED bulbs, strip lights or linear fluorescent lamps – especially for areas where lighting is used more constantly.
- Make better use of natural light by moving furniture or equipment away from windows and positioning desks closer to daylight where possible.
- Choose lighter wall colours, which reflect light more effectively and reduce the need for artificial lighting.
Top tip: Although LED lighting has a higher upfront cost, it typically lasts far longer than traditional bulbs and can significantly reduce both energy and maintenance costs over time.
5. Review your equipment
Office and operational equipment can drive up electricity use, particularly if it’s outdated, poorly maintained or left running when not in use. When reviewing your equipment for improved energy efficiency, here’s what to consider:
- Choose laptops over desktop computers where possible, as laptops typically use less electricity.
- Label switches and controls clearly so staff know what they should be turning off. For operating machinery, instructions may be beneficial.
- Check door seals on refrigerators and cold storage to ensure they are intact. Damaged seals allow cold air to escape, forcing equipment to work harder and use more energy.
- Upgrade white goods to higher EPC-rated models when replacements are needed. More efficient appliances reduce electricity use and can lower running costs over their lifespan.
Top tip: Replacing equipment isn’t always the most sustainable option. Where possible, repair, maintain or continue using existing equipment before upgrading.
6. Review your energy tariff
Even the most energy-efficient business can end up paying more than necessary if it’s on the wrong energy tariff. Regularly reviewing your contract helps ensure you’re not overpaying for electricity or gas. When reviewing your energy tariff, consider:
- Whether your current tariff still suits your usage, particularly if your operating hours, building size or equipment have changed.
- Contract length and flexibility, which can affect both pricing and your ability to adapt as your business evolves.
- Renewable energy options, which allow businesses to reduce their carbon footprint while supporting cleaner energy generation.
Switching to a renewable tariff can help improve your sustainability credentials and support wider environmental goals – without changing how your business operates day to day.
Top tip: For a deeper look at how supplier choice affects emissions, reporting and reputational risk, read our business case for a genuinely green energy supply.
7. Employee guidelines for energy saving
Day-to-day employee behaviour plays a key role in reducing unnecessary energy use across the workplace. Remind employees to:
- Keep windows closed when the heating or air conditioning is on.
- Switch off lights and non-essential equipment when you leave a room or desk.
- Turn off all machines, such as fans, pumps, and conveyors, at the end of the day.
- Turn off monitors and computers at the plug when you leave, particularly before the weekend.
- Use power saving settings where possible including laptops, desktops, and printers.
Top tip: Providing visible signage and clear ownership can help embed energy-saving habits without disrupting productivity.
As this guide shows, a combination of small facilities changes, informed equipment choices and simple employee reminders can add up to meaningful reductions in energy costs and carbon emissions over time.
Whether you start with quick wins or take a deeper look through a professional audit, every step towards better commercial energy efficiency helps build a more resilient, future-ready business.
Business energy efficiency FAQ
Energy efficiency describes the ratio of useful energy output to total energy input. More efficient devices waste less energy, and less efficient devices waste more energy.
Improving energy efficiency for business means using less energy to deliver the same level of comfort, productivity and output.
Businesses can improve energy efficiency by reducing heat loss, optimising heating and lighting controls, maintaining and reviewing equipment, encouraging energy-saving behaviours and choosing an appropriate energy tariff.
Many businesses can achieve energy savings of 10% to 30%, often using low- or no-cost measures. Furthermore, these improvements can deliver long-lasting benefits, with some businesses continuing to identify savings up to 12 years after implementation.
Actual savings depend on building type, building size, equipment and energy use.
Yes. Many energy efficiency improvements are low-cost or no-cost, such as behavioural changes, better controls and maintenance.
Heating, lighting and equipment typically account for the largest share of energy use in commercial buildings, and a significant portion of this energy use is usually wasteful.
For example, according to the Energy Saving Trust, the UK wastes £170 million a year simply by leaving lights on in empty rooms. Failing to switch off office lights overnight consumes enough energy in one year to heat a home for five months.