Chair at edie Live

Chair at edie Live

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Chair at edieLive Last week I chaired two sessions at edieLive, the UK's leading two day energy, sustainability and resource efficiency event for businesses. Taking place at the NEC, it welcomed thousands of people interested in environmental & energy management - businesses, consultants, suppliers, students alike. We were all there to learn, to network & improve our industry.   In the afternoon, I chaired the Resource Efficiency theatre session “Putting the O in H2O - Where is the opportunity in water?”. We had great presentations from L’Oréal & IHG - Intercontinental Hotels Group, about the work they’d done to integrate water efficiency into their businesses. At the hotels, clearly water in kitchens & bathrooms was key. Whereas for L’Oréal it was the water within the products & in the manufacturing processes. See my blog for edie.net earlier this year on this.   Earlier in the day at edieLive, I chaired the “Getting under the skin of an energy manager” session (photo above is a view from...
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Overcoming the Challenges to Environmental Management

Overcoming the Challenges to Environmental Management

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Overcoming the Challenges to Environmental Management There are many challenges to environmental management in business, some external but more often coming from within. Here are my thoughts on overcoming some of these challenges.   Make it your USP and gain competitive advantage Customers and clients expect their suppliers to do an element of environmental management, from carbon footprint calculations to ISO 14001-certified Environmental Management Systems. So take the initiative: use it as your USP to differentiate yourself from your competitors; show customers you reflect their values, and use this to win business.   Overcome your short-termism Most organisations (private & public) tend to focus on the short-term - budgets, pay-back periods, share price, terms of office, KPIs etc. To truly understand the risks & opportunities for your business, thinking a bit longer term makes sense.   A sustainable business should engage with everyone it works with to look at, and reward, longer-term results. Why exclude energy efficiency projects that have a pay-back period of 2 years? Why aren’t the...
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What is an EMS?

What is an EMS?

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ISO 14001 - What is an Environmental Management System? All companies should be thinking about embedding environmental management into their business processes. An environmental management system (EMS) is a system to actively manage your impacts and comply with the law. This can be a simple system, or something more formal, developed to the international standard ISO 14001.   With over 300,000 certificates issued across the world, ISO 14001 is the best known standard.   Organisations start out on this for a variety of reasons: Customer expectation - Customers now expect suppliers to demonstrate commitment to their own values.  Often, through tender documents, they will ask for carbon footprint, policy or ISO 14001. Competitive edge - Showing how their EMS makes them better than their competitors. Legal requirements – They may come under legal reporting requirements, be on the Environment Agency’s radar or are simply aware of the range of legislation that applies to them. Cost savings - With ever increasing costs and pressures on the...
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Water Deregulation

Water Deregulation

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Water - The Choice is Yours In 2017 the water industry is being deregulated in England and Wales. So, as with electricity and gas supply, businesses will be able to choose their own water provider.   Large business customers (consuming >50,000m3 of water a year) already have that supply choice and indeed businesses in Scotland have had retail competition since 2008.   By having a choice of provider, it is expected that business customers will see savings, discounts and more attractive payment terms, plus providers are likely to help you improve water efficiency.   All businesses and other organisations (not households) will be able to shop around for their water and sewerage suppliers from April 2017. The water coming out of your pipes doesn’t change, it’s really just who you pay!   Water users with high spends or lots of sites with low spend are likely to see the biggest potential gains.   What you should do now   You may be able to switch supplier now - review your current water...
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Ecodriving training

Ecodriving training

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Ecodriving training To save money when driving it’s not just down to your choice of vehicle – your driving techniques make a big difference in fuel efficiency.   Being heavy on the pedals. Not thinking ahead. Not using gears correctly. All these increase fuel consumption and make for a less smooth ride.   Can your company benefit from ecodriving training?   Ecodriving training can help provide: reduced fuel consumption and carbon emissions increased MPG by up to 15% reduced risk of vehicle accidents reduced vehicle wear and tear get your staff involved in your environmental work.   “Since the training took place, fuel consumption has reduced across our fleet by more than 20 per cent. Some of which is from efficiencies gained from our vehicle replacement programme, which accounts for about 8% of the fleet per annum, but the remainder is generally felt to be from better driving practices. When a fleet uses about 200,000 litres of fuel a year, as we do, this soon adds up.” Rob Newman, Service...
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Drivers for Sustainability

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Drivers for Sustainability In researching its latest International Business Report, Grant Thornton asked 2,500 businesses across 34 economies what is driving their corporate social responsibility activity, examples of CSR initiatives and how these are being reported. They also looked at the role integrated reporting can play in improving transparency and decision-making.   What drives companies to become more socially responsible? Businesses report an increase in drivers to move towards more environmentally and socially sustainable business practices. Globally, cost management is the main driver (67%), followed by customer demand (64%) and because it’s the ‘right thing to do’ (62%). How a business is perceived to be operating is also important in many countries (59%), especially China.   In the UK however, client / customer demand was the top answer (62%), with recruitment / staff retention next (49%).   Paul Raleigh, Global leader – strategic development and growth, Grant Thornton, says CSR could be the difference that beats the competition: “The leadership of dynamic businesses towards more socially responsible and transparent...
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University of Kent

University of Kent

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Testimonial from the University of Kent ESHCon recently helped the University of Kent implement their Environmental Management System. They kindly provided the following testimonial, after successful certification to ISO 14001.   “The University of Kent is the size of a small town in terms of its geographical size, population and operations, and contains a good deal more in the way of environmental features and risks.  Building an EMS was a daunting task – especially as the elaborate system which appeared necessary would have been unwieldy and doomed to failure.  Anya provided the perfect means to help us draw the many strands together into a really lean and manageable system which nevertheless covers all our requirements and really delivers.  Her vision of how this would take shape overall, her wide and detailed subject knowledge, and her highly personable manner were vital to driving the project forward, and getting numerous key players enthused.  We achieved accredited certification to ISO 14001 in just 14 months, which...
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