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With energy prices spiralling, there’s one question we’re asked more than any other: which is cheaper right now, gas or electric? There’s a simple answer to this. And then there’s the rather more nuanced response. Here’s the simple answer: gas tends to be cheaper than electricity. That still applies right now, despite the volatility in the gas supply market. That’s because around half of the UK’s electricity comes from gas, so gas supply problems affect the cost of both electricity and gas. But the basic cost of a unit of energy isn’t the only thing your Lancashire SME will [...]

We’ve calculated your carbon footprint. We’ve identified how you can reduce it. We’ve helped you access matched grant funding to make you a more efficient, more sustainable business. But what then? If there’s a way for innovation to drive further efficiencies in your business, Eco-I North West could be the answer. Sustainability, to reuse a well-worn cliché, is a journey. For many Lancashire SMEs it starts with a call to MaCaW. A carbon audit and subsequent report sets the business on a clear path towards understanding more about its carbon footprint and how to reduce it. Then a matched [...]

By the end of this decade, there’s a very real chance your home, business and your car could all be powered by hydrogen. Once upon a time, hydrogen wasn’t taken entirely seriously as a power source of the future. In the 1970s it was championed as a clean, green answer to the decade’s oil crisis, but proved too expensive to make a reality. As recently as 2019 Elon Musk called the tech behind hydrogen “mind-bogglingly stupid”, although you might conclude he would say that given his investment in electric vehicles (EVs). And yet, in 2022, a major project in [...]

Ask MaCaW to help your Lancashire SME reduce its carbon footprint (and energy bills) for free and the first step will be a chat with Andrew Gullick, MaCaW’s Carbon & Energy Auditor. His carbon report won’t just help you cut carbon; it can open the door to matched grant funding of up to £15,000 for carbon emission-reducing equipment. But how do you get from initial call to successful grant application? Andrew takes us through the steps. ndrew Gullick has a long history with carbon saving. “I started in building services in the early 2000s and moved on to compliance [...]

Reducing your Lancashire SME’s carbon footprint with MaCaW may lead to a matched grant for new, efficient equipment. But improvements can start by taking steps that require no capital investment at all. There’s a temptation to think that carbon reduction can’t happen without installing some clever piece of technology – a biomass boiler, solar panels or the latest energy-sipping HVAC (heat, ventilation and air conditioning) system. But the reality is that equipment is only half of the equation. For every LED bulb that could play its part in lowering your company’s energy use, there’s a person who could play [...]

Replacing old, energy-hungry equipment with new, more efficient models is a simple way to lower your energy bills and carbon footprint – but when you need to keep a tight control of your business capital you’ll want to ensure you get the biggest ‘bang for your buck’. So where do you start? David Richardson from the University of Central Lancashire’s Making Carbon Work (MaCaW) project, has some suggestions. You can’t know how you’re improving your carbon footprint unless you have a baseline from which to work. So our first recommendation for every Lancashire SME that works us is to [...]

Maintaining your plant and equipment is part and parcel of running a successful Lancashire SME. And the better maintained your equipment, the lower your carbon footprint is likely to be. You probably don’t need us to remind you of the importance of maintaining the equipment in your Lancashire SME. Regularly serviced equipment runs more efficiently and causes less motor, engine or compressor wear. It protects product quality, reduces the risks of breakdown, extends equipment lifespans and reduces the risk of the dreaded downtime. All of which is, of course, hugely important to any business. But there’s another reason to [...]

Low carbon heating explained Across UK homes and businesses, heating accounts for more than a third of carbon emissions. So if you really want to make an impact on your business’ carbon footprint, the heating is a great place to start. Here we look at the low carbon options available. The boiler. In most SMEs across Lancashire, it’s typically an aging relic of the fossil fuel age, prone to knocking and gurgling sounds, leaks and losses of pressure. Maintenance and running costs are relatively high – especially when required to heat large spaces - and so are the [...]

Feeling the Responsibility for Climate Change? There’s more to cutting carbon than saving money. For a growing number of Lancashire SMEs, decarbonisation is on the agenda because it’s the right thing to do. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by climate change. The sheer scale of the problem. The number of ways it affects us. Spend long enough watching images of Californian forest fires, crumbling ice shelves and bleached coral reefs and you could be forgiven for wondering what possible difference you could make. Of course, individually, the difference each of us can make is relatively small. That doesn’t [...]

Switching off and powering down can really add up this Christmas… Most Lancashire businesses have well-honed Christmas routines that ensure their workplaces are put into safe hibernation for a few days. But this year has been anything but routine, and that means your regular plans may already have gone out of the window. So if you’re anticipating a very different sort of Christmas break this year, remember to take these steps to ensure you don’t miss out on opportunities to save energy and cut costs. 1. Turn the heating down: Dropping the temperature of your workplace by just [...]