Rising energy costs, ambitious net-zero targets and increasingly stringent regulations are all on manufacturers’ radars – and are inspiring urgency. For example, under the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR), large UK organisations must report their energy use annually or face financial penalties, including fines. Manufacturers often understand that energy consumption is a major cost, but overlook how much is spent on environmental control systems. Heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems can account for over 60 per cent of energy consumption in UK buildings. In temperature-sensitive industries like pharmaceuticals and food and beverage production, it’s easy to see how costs can quickly increase. It’s not just energy either. Building occupancy can pose challenges, with shift changes, partially-used zones and quiet maintenance periods all muddying the waters. Ventilating and lighting unoccupied areas makes little sense, but often businesses will end up doing so because they rely on static timers. Indoor air quality (IAQ) is another important consideration. Left unaddressed, poor air quality can easily impact product quality and regulatory compliance. There’s also the impact on staff well-being, with long-term effects including increased risk of chronic respiratory conditions, such as asthma, as well as dementia. Connecting the dots and breaking silos This isn’t to say that industrial facilities aren’t already tracking occupancy, monitoring energy use or measuring air quality. However, these systems are often siloed — managed separately, logged independently in the building management system (BMS), and rarely brought together on the same dashboard. between building usage, environmental conditions and energy demand. For example, linking occupancy patterns to ventilation rates could reveal opportunities to reduce airflow in low-traffic zones or to increase it pre-emptively during shift changes. With better data visibility, facilities managers can shift from reactive to proactive strategies, improving efficiency while ensuring compliance and occupant comfort. The importance of dynamism Today’s manufacturing is far from static. Equipment ramps up and down, 28 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk August/September 2026 Energy & Environmental Management Focus on: HVAC When we think of industrial automation, it’s easy to jump to machine performance. Whether it’s reducing asset downtime or improving overall equipment efficiency (OEE), the emphasis has often been on process control. However, in many production facilities, large amounts of energy are also used to maintain the surrounding environment — heating, cooling, lighting and ventilating vast spaces. Mark Richards* explains how manufacturers can more effectively optimise their facilities by looking beyond process control and adopting building automation. How building automation can help improve efficiency and performance This fragmented approach can make it hard for manufacturers and facilities managers to glean any meaningful insights from their building data. Monitoring CO 2 levels is important for SECR reporting, but if that data isn’t linked to ventilation and other control systems, it becomes unclear where the issues are in the building and where intervention is needed. Consequently, manufacturers lose an opportunity to gain real-time data analytics and use these to make vital improvements. By integrating these data streams, manufacturers can uncover relationships
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