The management of energy within a company is often neglected, even though there is, more often than not, the considerable potential to save energy and reduce costs. To be fully effective, it needs to be an integral part of a business’s wider management process, and any CSR or sustainability goals.

While an energy saving strategy needs to be essential to your business, you don’t necessarily need an energy manager in order to implement your plan. And you don’t need to be an expert in the ways in which you can reduce energy either, there’s enough help and information out there that will show you the ways that your business should be moving.

Here are three ways that you can implement your energy saving strategy without an Energy Manager:

1. Commitment from senior managers

Without the support from your senior managers (and even your Managing Director), an energy saving strategy is bound to falter and would probably be marginalised. Your senior managers need to be convinced of the business case for investing money, and valuable staff time for energy management.

In order to gain the commitment from your senior management team, you should identify areas in the business where you could be making potential energy savings – and put together a plan for how you (or a team) could go about implementing this strategy.

As with any pitch to a senior team, it’s always a good idea to include any statistics that you can find, to evidence what funds could be saved should your strategy get the go ahead.

2. Do your research

Research when you’re not an expert in the energy field is key to the success of your strategy.

While you might have an idea where your business could make energy savings, you need to investigate whether these are areas that can be optimised for energy efficiency. Research into improving the energy efficiency of your work environment – whether you’re in an office or a factory – could bring to your attention ways of saving energy that won’t have crossed your mind before.

For instance, lighting can be the most energy intensive for a company, and can be responsible for up to 40% of a business’s energy use, which is staggering. A business who implemented sensors on their lights within toilets and store areas, now save £813 a year on their energy bills.

Research into energy efficiency will show you that you don’t always have to take big steps to make a difference, so make the most of smaller measures first, even if it’s a simple switch it off scheme.

3. Be prepared to make investments

While it is possible to implement an energy saving strategy and spend very little, or even no money at all, you will get larger returns on your investment if you’re prepared to spend a little more upfront.

This could be an investment on installing sensors or timers on lights, as mentioned above – or it could be on something of a much larger scale, such as the installation of renewable energy technology.

If you decide to investigate the opportunity for renewable energy technology in your business, make sure that you’re aware of all the options that are available to you. There is no doubt that a renewable energy investment will have secure returns for your business, whether you choose to invest in solar panels, wind turbines, or even CHP, the benefits that they will bring are significant.