After a first rather successful test this winter, the government is relaunching its sobriety plan for businesses. Objective: spend the summer without breaking the bank, while energy prices are still very high, and the climate crisis requires consuming sparingly.
During a meeting with around sixty representatives of groups listed on the CAC40 or the SBF120 to take stock of the sobriety measures put in place since the fall, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the Minister for Energy Transition, recalled that the he ultimate goal was to achieve a “40% reduction in final energy consumption” in the country by 2050 to achieve carbon neutrality. In other words, summer will also be placed under the sign of sobriety.
110 km/h instead of 130
In particular, the government encourages employees to slow down on the way to work by staying below 110 km / h on the highway. The Minister asked large companies on Monday to include this request for speed reduction in their social dialogue discussions in order to perpetuate the gestures of sobriety, beyond the context of the crisis.
In administrations, civil servants are already encouraged to reduce their driving speed during business trips. Asking employees to drive at 110 km / h on the motorway represents “three minutes on a 50 kilometer journey, but 20% less CO2 emissions and fuel consumption”, recalls the minister. A similar call for speed reduction had already been launched last October in a column published in the Sunday newspaper. She was signed by a dozen personalities including the filmmaker Cyril Dion, the engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici who directs the Shift Project, or the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
More transparency on energy consumption
In addition to this measure, the government above all asks companies to “set quantified targets for reducing energy consumption” (fuel, electricity, gas); to “have these objectives validated by high internal bodies such as the board of directors” or the executive committee; and finally to “publish them on the Internet or on dedicated platforms of the type supported by the State called ‘Les entreprises s’engage'”. The idea being that the data of sobriety of the companies are accessible to the investors and have a training role for a whole sector, one explains in the entourage of the minister.
Renault and Carrefour were cited as examples for having “massively installed devices for measuring energy consumption in their factories and in their stores”. Valeo and Orange too, because each year they publish “energy saving objectives and precisely quantified balance sheets”. Schneider was highlighted because the company includes an energy consumption reduction target for the evaluation of the managers of the group’s entities, which varies their remuneration.
Telework, yes but better
Companies are also encouraged to properly organize teleworking within the framework of social dialogue so that it allows effective energy savings. Because teleworking has only a very low impact on energy consumption when only some of the employees are absent, according to a study by the Agency for the environment and energy management (Ademe) and of the Institute for Building Performance (IFPEB), made public on Monday. On the other hand, it allows overall energy savings of 20 to 30% when a site is closed for the day. In the State administration, the annual telework package was raised to 253 euros, against 220 euros, on January 1 for agents.
Neither too much air conditioning nor too of heating
The Minister also recalled the instructions for the summer, among others that concerning the air conditioning: it must not be switched on until the indoor temperature reaches at least 26 degrees. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, on the other hand, congratulated the efforts made this winter, in particular on heating.
“The savings you made this winter is the equivalent of seven nuclear reactors,” she congratulated them. “We were able in three months – over the winter – to do what we have not been able to do in 30 years: lower our combined gas and electricity consumption by more than 10%”, she added. . In companies, fuel consumption is the only one not to have fallen in 2022 compared to 2021, she noted, however. The road is still long, but we are making progress.