Written By: Emma Montgomery
Reading Time: 2 minutes 20 seconds
The Value Of Energy
The headline of this article may seem very simplistic, and to some extent it is. The value of energy is obvious – it’s what modern society is built on. Try and think of a single thing in your life that would be possible without it. Everything from the food in our supermarkets to the lights in our office buildings rely on the usage of resources that are finite – and fast running out. Businesses need to be able to adapt to using less of these resources.
Think about the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, businesses big and small had to change at warp speed to fit new regulations that many had been unprepared for. This isn’t to shame anyone – it is impossible to predict a worldwide pandemic of this scale. However, we can predict climate change, which has the potential to be a much bigger threat than coronavirus.
The Scale Of The Problem
- The worst impacts of climate change could be irreversible by 2030.
- Indonesia is having to change its capital city due its current capital sinking.
- The UK is likely unable to meet its 2050 Carbon emissions goals.
- In 2020, Earth Overshoot Day (the day each year that humanity’s use of the Earth’s resources overtakes the Earth’s ability to regenerate them) fell on the 22nd of August.
- Up to 200 million people could be displaced by climate change by 2020 – known as ‘climate refugees’.
What Can We Do?
There is no one particular solution that can stop climate change, but what we do know is this: according to Carbon Intelligence, buildings were operating at only 16% less than their usual energy output during lockdown. In addition, in 2019, Earth reshoot day was on the 29th of July – not even a full month earlier than 2020’s Overshoot Day. Considering that the pandemic has (so far) been nine months long, the reduction in energy usage should have been much more than this.
Being mindful of energy usage is something proactive that businesses can do to both save energy and costs. While energy monitoring alone will not automatically make any difference to a business’s energy output, it can allow them to react to their data – resulting in lower energy usage and lower costs.
The Solutions Pulse Offers
Here at Pulse, we offer bespoke solutions that can be integrated into current building management systems and accessed remotely. This translates to the operators of commercial buildings being able to see where their building is expending unnecessary energy, and being able to do things like turn off lights and lower heating without having to enter the building. In addition, our solutions are designed, developed and manufactured in the UK – meaning that less carbon will be used in transporting our sensors to your business.