Most businesses already know they should be cutting energy waste and carbon emissions – the harder question is where to actually start. That gap is well documented: 86% of companies have a sustainability strategy, but only 35% have actually acted on it. The problem usually isn’t a lack of intent, it’s a lack of evidence: without knowing exactly where a building is losing energy, “get more efficient” stays a vague ambition rather than a specific, actionable plan.
In this blog, you’ll learn:
- Where energy typically gets wasted in commercial buildings – and why it’s not always where you’d expect
- How a commercial energy survey turns a general ambition into a costed, prioritised plan
- What that’s actually looked like across a school, a health centre and a set of community halls
- How to get started
Where Energy Actually Gets Wasted
The obvious culprit – an old, inefficient boiler or HVAC system – isn’t always the real one. At Horfield Health Centre, a GP surgery with a poor EPC rating and high carbon emissions, the heating system looked like the obvious next step. A commercial energy survey found something else entirely: the building’s insulation was so poor that installing a heat pump onto it, as it stood, would have increased running costs by around £6,000 a year. The fabric – not the heating system – was the actual problem.
That’s the pattern a survey exists to catch: outdated lighting, draughts, leaky ductwork and inconsistent insulation all waste energy quietly, and they don’t always announce themselves the way a visibly ageing boiler does.
Turning a Survey Into an Actual Plan
A commercial energy survey works because it’s sequenced – diagnostics first, then options, then a decision – rather than jumping straight to a recommendation.
That sequencing mattered for St Werburghs City Farm, where a decades-old community asset needed to know whether retrofit was even viable before any investment decisions could be made. Air tightness testing and thermography established the baseline; a full Commercial Energy Survey (with SBEM modelling under the PAS 2038 methodology) then identified the most cost-effective improvements; only then did the project move to assessing which low carbon technologies were genuinely appropriate for the site.
For Dragonfly Power, the sequencing served a different purpose: seven community halls across Test Valley needed survey evidence robust enough to actually win green grant funding, not just a general sense that improvements were possible. Structuring each report around what funders specifically look for – current usage, prioritised improvements, projected savings, ROI – helped three of the seven halls secure grants for solar, battery storage and heat pump installations.
What a Survey Report Actually Delivers
Rather than a single number, a good survey report separates findings into what’s actionable now and what needs capital investment: zero-cost operational fixes (recalibrating heating controls, sealing obvious draughts) versus the bigger fabric or systems upgrades that need budgeting and sequencing – each ideally paired with a projected payback, so priorities are based on evidence rather than guesswork. That investment case extends beyond running costs, too: MSCI research has found green-certified buildings can command a 25% value uplift over non-certified equivalents, and the case reaches customers as well as investors – 61% of UK consumers say sustainability now factors into their buying decisions.
There’s also a financial mechanism worth knowing about once a survey has identified specific measures: capital allowances on energy-efficient items let businesses deduct part of the cost of qualifying equipment from taxable profits, alongside a wider range of environmental taxes and reliefs gov.uk sets out for businesses operating more efficiently.
What’s Next?
Whatever’s driving the decision – rising costs, funding requirements or a genuine decarbonisation commitment – the starting point is the same: find out where the energy is actually going before deciding what to do about it.
We carry out Commercial Energy Surveys and identify which improvements are actually worth prioritising for your building.
Stay Informed
Practical insights on energy efficiency and compliance, delivered straight to your inbox.
"*" indicates required fields