Okay so firstly, some exciting news, we’ve just launched a carbon footprint calculator on our site! If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check it out here. Now that’s out of the way, I wanted to explain a little bit about why we decided to create this tool and what it actually does (it’s much more than just a fancy looking widget).
Those of you that are familiar with Hark will already know this, but for newcomers: there are three key pillars to what we do here. Pretty much everything we do revolves around these three things:
Connectivity – Connecting to devices and assets so that we can record their data. This is usually the first step to digitising a retail store, a factory, a laboratory – anything really. Connecting to assets is usually first step.
Visibility – Okay, we’ve got data, what now? Well, it has to go somewhere… Making the data super accessible and easy-to-read with beautiful dashboards is the next key step. In our case, we do this through the Hark Platform.
Automation – Finally, the part everybody yearns for: automation. We have the data; we can easily see patterns in that data. But what happens, you know, when those patterns emerge? Well, when we recognise patterns, we automatically update files, send alerts, control assets – the possibilities are endless.
What Does This Have to do With a Carbon Footprint Calculator?
Well, when all of the above ISN’T being done, businesses are left with waste, and lots of it. Assets sometimes perform badly and waste energy, and sometimes, assets aren’t even needed to be switched on at all, again wasting energy.
I recently had a problem – more of an oversight – to do with my boiler. It was still working, but the pressure was low, and my radiators weren’t getting very hot, even though I was feeding the boiler the same amount of energy. I ended up cranking the thermostat and paying a fortune, without even realising there was an issue. If I had an app to alert me immediately when the pressure dropped below a certain threshold, I’d have saved a fortune. You see my point?
When there are thousands of assets going unmonitored and unoptimized, the amount of wasted energy is huge. Not just energy waste, but financial waste too.
It can be hard to visualise just how much waste you’re actually accruing, and therefore difficult to make the leap into IoT technology: our carbon footprint calculator is an easy way to estimate your loss and visualise potential savings.
We Created the Emissions Calculator for Energy Managers, Asset Operators and Facilities Managers
The people we tend to work with: energy managers, asset operators and facilities managers, have to find ways to optimise energy consumption across an entire estate. For me, it’s easy enough to optimise my house – keeping doors shut in cold rooms, bleeding the radiators, etc. But doing that for every asset over 200 stores? Well, that’s enough to make one’s head spin, is it not?
But having all of those assets monitored by Hark technology, visualized on the Hark Platform and then cleverly automated for maximum optimisation? Well, that’s ideal, isn’t it? We actually saved a client £1m in one year by fully optimising their estate using our smart technology. That’s how big of an impact it can really make.
The Emissions Calculator Estimates Your Energy & Finance Savings
The problem a lot of people face is visualising HOW they can implement these new technologies and WHAT direct impact it will have to their business. The challenge is providing contextual information about a business’s energy usage; sure, an energy manager knows the pertinence of a KWh (kilowatt hour), but colloquialising that into more familiar metrics is what our calculator is aiming for.
So, we made a widget that calculates how much a company could save, both in terms of money and emissions, by implementing our IoT software. The results are based on energy data from average data from our clients. Luckily, here at Hark, we’re blessed to have lots of talented data scientists and software engineers who were able to bring the calculations to life. And the findings are delivered in relatable terms, so that anyone in the business can see the true value…
As an example, now the in-store bakers know how many products are saved by not leaving the oven on, instead of simply hearing numbers that don’t make all that much sense to them. Rather than “we’ve saved XXX KWh,” an energy manager can say “Our energy savings could power 50 homes.” – much easier to digest for non-energy professionals.
Now energy managers, asset operators and facilities managers who need to find ways to reduce waste energy and increase efficiency – and perhaps are interested in estimating the impact of investing in IoT technology – can use this tool to get some real insight into the difference IoT could make to them.
How would it feel to find out your wasted energy could power 10,000 homes? 100,000 phones? Could save you the equivalent cost of 5 Tesla Model 3s? Heck, you could buy 90,000 cups of coffee with that! It would probably feel like the right time to make a change.
Try our emissions calculator today to see how much of a difference IoT technology could make for you!
