The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 51: Oct/Nov 2020 | Page 15

GOING GREEN

SMARTech energy launches Energy Efficiency as a Service solution

The No capex , No lease and No risk approach to energy efficiency projects .
Wiltshire-based energy management and reduction specialist SMARTech energy is working with businesses and organisations across the UK to deliver its latest service offering , Energy Efficiency as a Service ( EEaaS ).
NO UPFRONT COSTS EEaaS enables organisations to implement energy efficiency projects , but without capital expenditure , finance leasing or risk .
It represents a shift from customer-owned equipment , towards a model where SMARTech energy invests in energy efficient technologies with the savings shared between the customer and SMARTech energy – and are guaranteed at between 20 per cent and 50 per cent .
Essex based food distributor Metrow Foods Ltd and University
Technical College ( UTC ) Swindon have recently signed up for the shared savings solution as part of a cost effective way to reduce their building ’ s energy consumption .
PURSUE ENERGY EFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES Using a diverse portfolio of more than 33 energy saving technologies , SMARTech energy maintains ownership of the technologies , designs the project , funds the materials and installation costs and monitors the performance to validate the energy savings . The energy savings are then split approximately 33 per cent and 67 per cent between the client and SMARTech energy respectively .
GUARANTEED SAVINGS Energy efficiency drives are sometimes seen as non essential to the survival of a business , but for many organisations , the past few months have been incredibly challenging and companies are now readily accepting that reducing energy use and waste is financially strategic to their business recovery plan .
Managing Director of SMARTech energy , Stuart Pearce , said ,“ The Covid-19 pandemic has dealt a huge financial blow to many businesses and with energy being one of the most significant costs for an organisation , reducing it is incredibly important to the overall bottom line , business profitability , growth and sustainability .
“ For a company with a profit margin of 15 per cent , reducing energy costs by £ 15,000 per annum
For more info : www . SMARTech-energy . co . uk

CREATING A PAPERLESS OFFICE

Wiltshire Medico-Legal experts Jane James & Associates share the benefits of going green and creating a paperless office .
Jane James & Associates is an independent medico-legal reporting company that provides professional reports in the fields of clinical negligence and personal injury . The firm has been providing expert witness reports since 1987 and has dealt with huge volumes of records in hard copy over the years . Last year , the team made the commitment to go paperless and during lockdown they completed their mission and have revolutionised their business as a result . Lucinda Lloyd , Head of Operations and Clinical Support at Jane James & Associates tells us more .
How big was the challenge to go paperless ?
Huge ! We had over 15 years of records to digitise . In the past , when considering office space , there has always been an emphasis on having ample storage for the voluminous number of boxes and lever arches of evidence , not to mention medical records . This is in addition to having costly administration processes to sort and log all the evidence , which then required posting via courier or Royal Mail to our experts who work remotely .
01225 635660
What impacted your decision to go for it ?
As a team , we regularly review our operational practice to ensure that we are doing the task efficiently , and in a costeffective manner . We are always mindful of keeping our costs to a minimum , both for ourselves and , of course , our clients . The decision to go paperless was initially part of an IT project undertaken by the Support Services Team , who advised us that with a change of mindset and additional training for experts , the benefits of a paperless system would be significant .
The process started with identifying a suitable platform , which turned out to be easy and very cost effective . We had in the past attempted to go paperless , but the cost of a bespoke management package was hard to justify . We are successfully using Microsoft SharePoint , which means our documents are secure on a cloud-based system . is the equivalent of bringing in £ 100,000 worth of new business ”.
GREENER AND MORE DYNAMIC BUSINESS This financial return enables organisations to easily integrate energy efficiency projects into a business process and the Government ’ s drive for ‘ greener and more dynamic businesses ’ following the Covid-19 crisis now makes for an even more compelling business case .
Formed in 2014 , SMARTech energy has firmly established
Can you share with us the benefits to the business ?
We have had very positive feedback from all of our experts and the following benefits have been easy to identify :
• Significant savings on storage , printing and postage .
• Administrative time has reduced significantly . However , not all of our clients send documents in easy access folders , so there can still be quite a lot of tidying up , but we are working collaboratively with them and we are positive that we will all benefit from time saving in due course .
• Documents are easily accessible and logged in a way that makes it straight forward for experts and support services to find them .
• The documents are more secure than in hard copy and much less likely to get misplaced .
• The system helps us to meet our corporate environmental responsibility , along with other initiatives .
01249 456360 itself as a major player in the energy management and reduction sector and brings together expertise , technology and services which guarantee a cost effective approach to the implementation of energy management ; helping organisations to cut carbon emissions , reduce costs and lower energy consumption .
Stuart added , “ All organisations have the potential for energy efficiency improvements and fundamentally EEaaS can transform how organisations can implement these improvements .”
Has going paperless inspired any more green initiatives in the business ?
Lockdown definitely forced us to make changes which have digitally transformed the way we work . In the past , we carried out the majority of our care assessments face-to-face . During lockdown there were meetings and assessments that still needed to happen and in common with many within the medico-legal arena , we embraced video calls to keep us in operation and to continue to assist in meeting Court timetables where possible . We are pleased that this has been a success . Whilst it is not a solution in every case , as some claimants still need to be seen in their home environment , it has cut down our travelling time which has provided us with the option to take on additional work , as well as reducing our carbon footprint .
For more info : www . janejamesandassociates . co . uk
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