A recent article on www.telegraph.co.uk highlighted the advantages for companies of all sizes of investing in energy efficiency initiatives, obvioulsy a lot of larger organisations like M&S, Tesco and BT have already implemented changes. The issue is that this is for everyone in business whatever the size and too many are not seing how they could benefit and are therefore not doing anything at all! Read full story here.

According a survey by the Carbon Trust, more than half of small businesses (52pc) see a greener economy as a threat.

Almost half (43pc) believe that reaping the benefits of green growth first requires access to capital, less than a third (29pc) expect it to lead to increased profits and only 22pc are investing in creating greener products or services.

It is a downbeat picture explained perhaps by the battering many small firms have taken since the financial crisis. Their focus is on survival and a sometimes unwelcome rise in the costs and time needed to comply with new environmental legislation.

Britain’s small firms must wake up to the opportunities at their fingertips, says Ian Gibson, the Carbon Trust’s director of delivery programmes. “There are obvious and compelling reasons to address how green your business is because it can cut overheads fast. Most SMEs can make easy savings very quickly,” he says.

“Consistently we found that cost-saving measures can cut energy bills by 20pc. That’s easy, low-hanging fruit. It includes energy efficiency measures like heating or lighting controls and many things that don’t require capital expenditure.

“It will help control your operating costs allowing you to invest in the business or increase profits.”

Companies from printers to pubs can benefit from adopting these schemes and the savings can be considerable and they range from simple switches in attitude to really understanding how your business can make energy savings.

One essential task that every company should undertake as a first action is to review their business electricity and business gas contracts ensuring that you have checked your last set of utility bills and that they are accurate and not estimated.

Upon reviewing your contract you will need to make sure that you have not just been ‘rolled over’ into a new contract without being aware as this could prove to be very costly as invariably the rates will have gone up and there will be no recourse for action to change or get out of it until it has run its course.

If your contract is due for renewal then by using the services of a specialist independent price comparison website like www.energyadviceline.org.uk could help you save. Their online quotation service will allow you to check your current rates against the leading suplliers and find the best deal going for your particular requirements. Once you are happy with their free quotation then switching is a very straightforward process with the assistance of a helpful adviser who will help and guide you through the process either online or over the telephone whichever you prefer.

This is just a start and as other schemes become available British business should not be afraid to embrace them.

Following a sharp increase in the wholsale price of gas Britain needs to steel itself for another round of price hikes in gas and electricity. Not great news for domestic users, even worse for businesses who are already finding the rise in their utility bills a real strain on their overheads.

You may question how the price of gas could affect the price of business electricity but when you consider a third of the UK’s power stations are run on gas then the resultant issues are obvious.

Reports also highlight Japan’s urgent need for power and with the failure of some of their nuclear reactors it is apparent that they will be turning to alternatives including imported LNG (Liquified Natural Gas). These imports could well be resources that were originally bound for the UK – certainly we are not going to stand by at let Japan suffer but we will need solutions to ensure we do not suffer punishing rises that could end up crippling our country.

Some might question that these price hikes are simply ‘profiteering’ by certain unsrcupulous brokers keen to make a profit using the Japanese crisis as a smokescreen to hide behind – we shall have to wait, suffer and see.

In the meantime businesses should check out how to conserve their business energy by using the services of an independent business electricity or business gas price comparison site like energyadviceline who can at least provide them with information bout the rates they could get by switching to a more economical supplier.