Energy cost still outweighs sustainability as business priority

Despite recent global attention on the environment following Climate Week in New York and net-zero pledges from many UK companies, almost half of manufacturing business energy managers (47%) admit saving energy costs still remains their primary concern.

The findings– drawn from a survey commissioned by npower Business Solutions – are likely a result of increasing political and economic uncertainty in the UK.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed (77%) are concerned about potential business energy price hikes, with Brexit viewed as the greatest factor affecting business energy prices in the future (36%).

In fact, almost half (41%) of those polled believe a no-deal Brexit will lead to consistently higher energy prices in the medium-term.

When it comes to a potential change in government, manufacturing energy managers believe that this is likely to lead to increased price instability (68%) and greater regulation (58%), and the continued roll-out of new energy-related policies to meet net-zero targets (57%).

However, UK manufacturing businesses are already implementing a number of strategies and tools to help manage energy efficiency and better prepare their business for continued uncertainty.

More than half (58%) either have implemented or are planning to implement demand side response technology, while 38% say employee behaviour change programmes (38%) have led to the greatest reduction of energy use for their businesses.

In terms of policies to help the UK bridge the carbon emissions gap and meet the net-zero targets, more than a quarter (26%) of retail business energy managers say new carbon pricing framework will get the job done.

*All images courtesy of Depositphotos