Building Engineers Accept 10% Pay Rise
Owing to a settlement between Unite and the Building Engineering Services Association, building engineering services operatives will receive an uplift in...
Read Full ArticleThousands of commercial and residential building owners are missing out on easy low-cost ways to improve energy efficiency, according to BESA.
The association also welcomed Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s announcement of an additional £6 billion from 2025 for energy efficiency measures in his autumn statement, but feels that “more ambitious” financial incentives and policy measures would also be needed to deliver the scale of building upgrades required to properly address energy costs and climate change.
BESA’s comments are in light of new data from the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) which found that UK businesses and homeowners were missing out on over £3 billion worth of savings every year due to a lack of energy efficiency awareness and financial incentives.
Turning down thermostats and heating flow temperatures, having boilers and other plant serviced, improving insulation, and replacing inefficient lightbulbs with LEDs are all quick and easy measures that are not being widely adopted.
The “Powering Energy Efficiency” report published in collaboration with the pump manufacturer Grundfos found that 14 per cent of businesses have either never had a boiler service or have not had one in the last five years, despite three-quarters of business owners saying they wanted to make their heating system energy efficient.
20 per cent of business owners admitted they had not had an energy efficiency audit for more than five years, and some had never had one.
Only 37 per cent of the 500 respondents said they checked their eligibility for business grants and only 32 per cent would seek advice on how to improve energy efficiency. Instead of improving building performance, some are looking to reduce overheads by cutting staff numbers and wages, with others making more people work from home.
“It is very frustrating that businesses are considering taking such draconian steps when improving building energy performance can be done quickly by adopting a series of relatively simple and low-cost measures,” said BESA Chief Executive David Frise.
“A basic audit of your building services will identify where small improvements can make a significant difference – and many of those steps are completely free, such as adjusting flow temperatures and tweaking thermostats. Just having neglected equipment serviced is another basic step that will provide an instant return.”
Picture: a photograph of an open plan office showing several work stations. Three people can be seen working on a table at the centre of the image, using laptops. Image Credit: Unsplash
Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 07 December 2022
Owing to a settlement between Unite and the Building Engineering Services Association, building engineering services operatives will receive an uplift in...
Read Full ArticleBESA President Claire Curran said that the building services sector needs to take more action and do less talking about the challenges and risks it faces. At the...
Read Full ArticleA World Health Organisation conference in Switzerland focusing on indoor air quality will be sponsored by the Building Engineering Services Association. The event,...
Read Full ArticleBS40102 Part One is the first British Standard for indoor air quality, and has been praised by The Building Engineering Services Association. The standard gives...
Read Full ArticleRICS has launched an eight-week-long consultation to gather opinions from industry professionals on the new RICS Residential Retrofit Standard for 2023. The data...
Read Full ArticleThe full programme for The Building Engineering Services Association’s sixth annual conference has launched. Taking place on 12 October 2023 at Novotel...
Read Full ArticleClaire Curran from Linaker has been elected President of the Building Engineering Services Association for 2023/24. Claire has almost 25 years of experience...
Read Full ArticleA report commissioned by EngineeringUK says that vacancies for green engineering roles in the UK increased by 55 per cent in the past five years, driven by the focus on...
Read Full ArticleA survey conducted for Clean Air Day found that 83 per cent of respondents wanted to know more about the air quality inside their homes, 1/6 said they worried about...
Read Full ArticleThe Building Engineering Services Association is marking 2023’s National Clean Air Day with new IAQ training materials. The theme of this year’s Clean Air...
Read Full Article