Commtech Group UK - Perfecting the indoor Climate, Air Humidity, Air Movement, Temperature, Lighting Levels, Air Quality, Sound Level, Electric Environment

Mike Malina* says the Government will have to intervene and introduce tough financial penalties or forget about meeting its carbon reduction targets.

‘Every night I sit here by my window’ as the famous song goes. And what do I see? ‘…lovers holding hands and laughing’. Well, yes that, but also lots of lovely lights burning brightly and illuminating the skylines of our cities. It’s a superb sight - and it makes me really angry.

The industry makes me angry too. I genuinely believe we have lost the plot and for all our grand words about saving the planet, at this rate it is going to be more a case of luck than judgment if we manage to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

We are the experts on energy efficiency, but have managed to successfully turn off the entire population and the Government has not helped. I am sick and tired of going along to conferences and being bombarded with sub-paragraph this and addendum that – creating policy solves nothing. People don’t want theory and regulation, they want practical solutions and we need state intervention to make them do it.
Massive financial incentives through tax breaks – big ones – and crushing penalties for those who ignore best practice are required. People complain about the Nanny State, but I don’t think this government intervenes enough – they think by publishing the Energy White Paper this year they had solved the problem. But who is going to implement the measures they claim to want and what tools are they prepared to give us to do it?

Financial tools are the only ones that will make businesses sit up and take notice. The ECA scheme is great in principle, but as with everything they have made it too complicated so it is a complete turn off, and the Climate Change Levy is only fiddling around in the margins.

It is the cost of fuel that counts and the market has been rigged ever since privatisation – it should be heavily taxed and the price forced up to ensure that currently complacent financial managers are suddenly screaming at their building managers to put proper conservation measures in place.

Our experience since privatisation proves that the free market doesn’t work in the energy field; it simply encourages people to waste fuel. If the price had been allowed to rise in line with inflation then we would be in a position where users, large corporates in particular, would be looking much more closely at their fuel bills today.

People will not apply meaningful energy saving measures unless they are made to. It is extremely depressing to survey luxury hotels or state-of-the-art office complexes where they leave the lights in the underground car park blazing night and day. It is not necessary, we have had occupancy sensors for years now and the latest models work extremely well – why can’t people just light things when they need to.
A system of building ‘MOT’s’ surely can’t be far away. The importance of tuning and servicing our cars has been drummed into us for long enough, so why do we treat our buildings so badly – particularly as most of them are not running correctly and are extremely wasteful.

This is not just lights we’re talking about here – look in any office window and see VDUs and photocopiers merrily whirring away to themselves too and that’s before you start looking at the hidden systems like HVAC plant. You can be sure that if a company is happy to ignore lights, they won’t have given even a passing thought to how efficient the services are. If you want to make some kind of corporate statement about yourself by lighting your building, put in some subtle external lights. Leaving office lights blazing simply makes the statement: ‘Look at me – look how wasteful I am and how little I care about the planet’.

The rule of thumb is; ‘Would you do this at home?’ No, of course you wouldn’t because you are paying the bill. If you do it at work too, you are still paying the bill through your taxes and through the long-term degradation of your lifestyle.

*Mike Malina is manager of the Energy Management Division of The Commtech Group.

The Commtech Group,
Breakfield,
The Ullswater Business Park,
Coulsdon,
Surrey.
CR5 2HS