Helping SMEs adopt green habits
SMALL BUSINESSES on Teesside are in danger of falling into a green vacuum as bosses struggle to find the time, money and support to draw up and implement environmental policies.
Mike Chicken, environmental project manager for Stockton Council, which runs a free green help service for small firms, said they needed all the assistance they could get.
“We would suggest people look at an existing policy and plagiarise it,” he said - not least because they could lose valuable orders without one. “We often ask companies what their environmental policy or environmental statement is as we go through the procurement tender, but some companies do not have the time or the expertise to do it.”
Environmental policies didn’t have to be “wildly complex”, he said. Firms often found they were compatible with other business plans. “The key thing is they need to demonstrate they are managing resources effectively, but the least I would expect to see is a target to reduce energy consumption by ‘x’ per cent and recycle by ‘x’ amount.”
He said the council was planning to run a second green business breakfast for SMEs, following a successful pilot event.
It will be the only free service dedicated to small businesses when One NorthEast’s region-wide Midas scheme ends later this year.
John Barton, North-east adviser for The Carbon Trust, said the government agency, which works exclusively with business, would not give face-to-face support to any organisation whose energy bill was less than £50,000 a year.
“I fully understand the position small businesses are in,” he said. “But it’s not cost effective for us to offer that level of service to them.”
Instead, it runs a telephone advice line.
Lorraine Carter, of low-carbon systems supply firm Durable Technologies in Hartlepool, said small companies were better at common sense energy conservation than corporate giants - “because we see the bills”.
Husband Alex said small business owners who wanted to install low energy systems were often restricted by landlord/tenant agreements. “A landlord has no incentive to install it, because it’s the tenant that pays the bill and that’s the dilemma,” he said.
Koodoo web designers’ office in Stockton is fully fitted with energy saving gizmos. But director Adam Lee said he brought the recycling habit from home.
He said a green policy was just common sense. “We use recycled paper and recycle the paper we use.”
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