Blog: Is older really wiser in small firms’ energy supply?

Question: Who would most you expect to go big for a new technology? Is it more likely to be: A)     a twenty year old, B)     a thirty-year-old, C)     a forty-year-old […]

Question: Who would most you expect to go big for a new technology?

Is it more likely to be:

A)     a twenty year old,

B)     a thirty-year-old,

C)     a forty-year-old or

D)     a fifty-year old?

So what about going for green energy- let’s say installing a wind turbine or a solar panels – on the site of their business?

If we could do a virtual show of hands, then you’d all be wrong. The answer is 55.

Admittedly that was a trick question – but it got your attention. According to a recent survey ELN reported on, 20% of small to medium sized business (SME) owners aged 55 or more already generate renewable power on their premises.

Older business owners appeared to be most ahead of the game, going by these stats. Of course if we were being super-scientific, we’d never rely on just one survey. But for me, the YouGov poll of 1,000 SMEs does raise an interesting point.

What did you go for? Did you assume someone younger would go for it?

So who IS making the important calls on whether to go for green energy? Perhaps a twenty-something is less likely to be in a position where they make that sort of decision or own their own business. But I would definitely have thought thirty or forty-year-olds would be the ones pitching for investment in green energy.

Maybe the adage ‘Older and wiser’ does apply when it comes to green energy. Forty has long been called the new thirty… perhaps in this technologically accelerating world, fifty is the new twenty?

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