LEASA App Paving the Way for Energy Efficiency

It is now a much easier for businesses to find energy efficient buildings in their area. RICS – the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors – has just released an app called LEASA. It is available on Android and Apple products and comes with a Choosing and Managing Energy Efficient Space guide. The guide explains how to use the software and how it may help benefit you as a business no matter what stage you are presently at – whether you are looking for new premises or hoping to save energy to improve your NABERS rating. It is available worldwide and works in conjunction with relevant authorities and national surveyor organisations. As far as Australia is concerned it takes data directly from the registered BEECs and puts it into a searchable database.

It is mainly targeted at small and medium sized enterprises that will be looking at energy and waste efficiency as a key factor in selecting a property to buy or to let. It is designed to allow potential customers to:

• Compare a number of properties at one time and will rank them based on set criteria
• Calculate expected running costs and therefore identify potential profit margin against utility bills
• Calculate how the amount of office space used will affect energy efficiency. It will also help to calculate the relative cost of the total space

You can download the app from the relevant store or marketplace or go direct to the RICS website at www.rics.org/Leasa

LEASA and Your Bills

The app does not just help you to find the best office available for your business, it also aids in reducing your energy consumption and all you need is a recent bill. You can do this through the Energy Bills Tool. Put as much information as you can from your energy bill including the total kwh rate and the actual cost of the bill.

The Calculator option on the app helps you to work out the relative cost of your lighting. This is a variable cost not only affected by wholesale prices but also by how efficient your business is at not leaving lights on unnecessarily, using energy efficient bulbs, the floor area and of course how much lighting you have on your premises. Do you have too many installed? Could you switch half of them off and still leave the premises sufficiently lit? When you do your BEEC search on the app for available premises, it will also show the lighting score of each building.

The BEEC option allows you to compare tenancies registered score for both BEEC and NABERS. BEEC data is also automatically included in the Tenancies tool. One of the most interesting developments is that if a building does not have a BEEC then you can manually enter the Net Lettable Area (NLA) and Nominal Lighting Power Density (NLPD) manually. Both of these ratings are usually held by the Lettings Agent.

As with any calculator, it will not give you a complete accurate breakdown as there will be other variable issues to consider. However, it works as a useful guide in providing projected energy costs as you consider your property options