This year the Carbon Trust extended its remit to the agricultural buildings sector, especially for horticulture, pigs and poultry.

Reducing the energy requirement of a farm has savings both environmentally and financially.

But like many other sectors, farmers could be failing to realise this. Perhaps it is because messages such as ‘why change’, ‘when to change’ and ‘how to change’ are being drowned by the more dramatic ‘you must change’ ethos.

A recent conference hosted by commercial law firm, Bond Pearce, in Bristol, managed to avoid this pitfall with simplified messages for businesses so they could ‘start making considered responses’.

Energy was top of the agenda. The frustration at missed opportunities was clear.

Duncan Bardsley, south west regional manager at the Carbon Trust, says many businesses had investment criteria relating to energy savings which only looked at the next six to 12 months.

This meant that rising energy costs were being ‘accepted’, something that businesses do at their peril.

Source: Farmers Guardian