Chamber launches new environment team to encourage ‘greener’ businesses

• Jun. 2 by Kellie Maddox (0)

Birmingham Chamber of Commerce has devised a new environment team to encourage businesses to operate more efficiently – benefitting the environment and their finances.

As part of the new project, the team will launch a website which will contain information and advice on how local businesses can benefit from operating with greater resource efficiency and how to improve their environmental performance.

The team – Paul Hanna, Director of Economic Development and Partnership, Kate Bullock, Environmental Advisor and R. Shariat, Operations Manager – will aim to deliver the project through social media and hope to engage with businesses through cross-networking, open discussion and campaigns to highlight the importance of environmental factors in business performance.

 Speaking of the project, Paul Hanna said:

 ‘We’re adopting an ‘organic’ strategy here and hope the project will build gradually over time. The idea is to create a mini-site which will have a menu of all the different environmental factors that businesses should consider.

 The Chamber works with a lot of SME’s (Small Medium Enterprises) and we aim to get them to consider how addressing some of these ‘green’ factors will improve their businesses’ efficiency and performance.’

 The website will focus on five key areas that can improve businesses’ environmental performance: reducing waste, energy use, water use, transport costs and improving process efficiency.

There are similar resources out there for businesses to help encourage better environmental practice. Business Link already has a guide for companies on the benefits of improving environmental performance and in 2009, Defra published guidance on how businesses can measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions.

A report published by the Environment Agency in 2008 – reflecting on the previous 10 years of development and progress in ‘green’ business performance – shows improvements in compliance with environmental regulations:

‘The sectors that have reported to us since 1998 (energy, chemicals, metals, minerals) have: reduced greenhouse gas releases by four per cent, cut releases of sulphur oxides (SOx) by 69 percent, fine particles (PM10) by 53 per cent, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 12 per cent and reduced waste by 14 per cent.’

It acknowledges though that many issues continue to be a problem and need addressing. These include: ‘climate change, protecting health, protecting the environment from pollution, sustainability and resource efficiency and whether industry takes the environment seriously enough.’

 The Birmingham Chamber website is set to launch later this month so follow @Green_Shariat and @Green_Kate on Twitter to hear more about the project’s progress.