UK: A POSITIVE TURN OFF - Business fuel bills are about to rise by 15% as the Government prepares to ...

A POSITIVE TURN OFF - Business fuel bills are about to rise by 15% as the Government prepares to introduce a climate change levy. Yet a Management Today/Brecsu survey reveals a lack of focus on reducing energy consumption at work. It's time to get serious, suggests Alex Garrett.

One priority in any Utopian vision of the workplace of the next century will be to minimise energy consumption. Information and voice traffic will dart silently around the world, registering barely a blink on the electricity meter. People will live close to the place where they work, perhaps an ecologically designed telecottage powered by solar panels or a wind turbine. The great office towers of the 20th century will have long since been dismantled. Meetings will be conducted via a thin plasma wall-screen. Old motorways will form the backbone of a national cycle grid, and airports will be historic theme parks.