Energy management excluded from the boardroom

According to research by business-to-business consultancy energyTEAM, leaders of medium-sized businesses in the UK are not taking responsibility for energy management within their organisations.

Instead, this function is delegated to less senior personnel - such as facilities managers, health and safety officers or operations managers - in two-thirds of companies with over 50 employees. "While energy management may have been rightly viewed as an operational task in the past, increased focus on minimising global climate change through reduced, efficient energy use has become a boardroom-level issue," says the energyTEAM report. The study reveals that only a fifth of managing directors (MDs) and CEOs are responsible for this activity.

In businesses with over 500 employees - arguably those with the greatest energy usage - only 3% of MDs or CEOs are responsible for energy management, rising to 14 per cent in companies with 250 to 500 staff.

"If the UK wishes to play its part in helping to minimise global climate change then businesses must be encouraged to think further ahead than the next two to five years," says Brian Rickerby, joint managing director of energyTEAM. "Unfortunately, these are not decisions that can be made at an operational level, where short-term payback is king."