While pressure has been exerted on consumers to be aware of their carbon footprint by recycling and conserving energy, Irish companies have received relatively little pressure to conform to better standards by reducing their energy expenditure and wastage.

Many Irish businesses are guilty of the dumping, or wasting of surplus energy on a daily basis, costing the Irish economy millions each year while contributing towards our environmental deficit.

An Irish company – CESenergy – is looking to change the way businesses think about their energy requirements taking Irish business into the future environmentally.

CESenergy is a provider of a clever on-site energy generation system – Combined Heat Power (CHP) – which allows companies to generate their own energy.

Electricity is produced with the by-product ‘heat’ which is then simply re-channelled and used, avoiding any unnecessary wastage. Having seen many European countries employing Combined Heat and Power to lower energy requirements and costs, Tom Marren, Managing Director of CESenergy said: “Irish companies seriously need to look at their energy usage and examine how waste can be avoided to reduce their commercial carbon footprints and costs. The time has come where consumers will look at a company’s energy/waste policy before buying into a particular product or service – companies need to market themselves as environmentally considerate in their operations.”

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Alarmingly Ireland is ranked 15th in the European Union with less than 3% of its electricity derived from CHP, while the European Commission expects that members states will make the 18% mark by the year 2010.

A massive 1.8% of all electricity consumed in Ireland is put down to machinery and electrical items being on standby. With another electricity increase set to come into play from 1 October next, the cost of non-renewable resources is set to climb higher for the foreseeable future.

Commenting, Tom Marren said: “What companies do not realize is that going greener can mean excellent best practice where costs are concerned, actively contributing to the bottom line. A business energy inefficiency is just crazy expenditure on wasted energy which can be channelled back into the business to cut costs. Some city businesses employing in the region of 150, can save up to 30% on their electricity expenditure… this amounts to quite a lot when you consider that some businesses would have electricity bills in the region of a quarter of a million in any one year”.

(JM/SP)