It may be less glamorous than other areas, but nonetheless, when talking of energy consumption, one of the most straightforward ways of making money is to save it.

If a development is to prove successful in keeping the shoppers it has attracted, it needs at least two things - to be well lit and warm. Both elements mean energy and add up to a fair proportion of the cost of running a successful centre. And there is a dual prize to be won by those who can cut their energy consumption or be more effective in its use. There is the warm glow that comes with making money when it appeared there was none and there is the approbation of the green lobby that will hold you up as an example of how things can be done.

Chris Hodgson, retail and commerce project manager at government-funded environmental consultancy Envirowise, is part of a team charged with spreading the word to shopping centres about how saving energy can benefit all parties. He is pragmatic in his approach: "Most people care about energy efficiency because it can save them money. Footfall and sales are the things that really motivate retailers and shopping centres." He adds: "most centres are really keen to reduce their impact on the environment once they understand the savings that can be made."

In 2005, Envirowise worked with Gunwharf Quays, the Arndale centre in Luton, the Trafford Centre and the High Chelmer centre in Chelmsford, advising them on how to become more energy efficient. This year it aims to take its message to a number of other high-profile shopping centres, helping centre managements to save cash.

Hodgson continues: "The way we've been working is to emhasise that it's really important to get buy-in from tenants. It's mostly low-cost solutions like turning off lights and conducting an audit of how things are done. There's also the communications side of things. As an arbitrary, third party body we talked to tenants and often found that a lot of them didn't know what could or should be done because they hadn't been told."

The communication side of things is vital according to Hodgson. He says that the momentum for any initiative has to come from the centre itself: "we provide the tools, but the centres are the ones driving this."

Another way in which a shopping centre might raise its game is to concentrate on the way in which it buys its power. EDF Energy is pioneering a system where business customers can buy electricity closer to the market. At the moment, the majority of shopping centres work on the basis of signing a contract with an energy supplier at the beginning of a year that more or less guarantees the price they are likely to pay for electricity during the course of the 12-month period. The problem with this is that the wholesale energy markets are volatile and prices fluctuate with regularity. This means that the energy suppliers take a likely average price for a year and then put a premium on top of this, in case market wobbles catch them out.

By contrast, EDF works by asking large customers to sign a "flexible contract" that gives direct access to the wholesale market. The level of active involvement by the customer can be varied to suit their needs, but it does mean that shopping centre management can make quicker decisions about when to buy electricity and for how much. The theory goes that by doing this, advantage can be taken of energy market price changes.

To date it is something that has not generally been done by shopping centres, but Boots has signed an agreement that covers all of its stores. Taken en masse, the sum total of Boots energy requirements is probably considerably greater than any UK shopping centre, but EDF also offers aggregated flexible contracts where agreements are pooled and then managed for the benefit of all.

Finally, as well as switching off and buying more smartly, it is worth asking how energy-efficient your scheme is. An EU Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings is on its way that will rate buildings on an energy-saving scale from A to G. Consultancy Upstream Strategies focuses on environmental benchmarking for shopping centres. Last year, Upstream's Environmental Benchmarking for Shopping Centres 2005 looked at 131 centres across 11 companies. It benchmarked energy and climate change, water use and resource depletion, waste management, and new in 2005, commercial vehicle movements.

It appears that if a shopping centre is really serious about energy, there are several ways to skin a cat,

Contacts

Upstream Strategies: http://www.upstreamstrategies.co.uk

EDF Energy: http://www.edfenergy.com

Envirowise: http://www.envirowise.gov.uk

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