GUEST COLUMNIST: BUSINESS TO BUSINESS CLUB TO HELP IMPROVE RESOURCE EFFICIENCY

Resource Efficiency East Launches New Initiative to Improve Environmental Performance of East of England Businesses.

Antony Gough, Director of Resource Efficiency East.

It is widely acknowledged that small businesses looking to improve resource efficiency will often benefit from adopting an environmental management system (EMS). However, more often than not, they lack the knowledge, understanding and time to implement such a system unaided. An environmental management system can help a company identify cost saving opportunities, ensure compliance with relevant legislation, meet the requirements of key customers and reduce the organisations impact on the environment.

As such the Resource Efficiency East Programme is launching The EMS Club early in 2010 and is calling on smaller businesses from the East of England to register their interest in the latest support offering from the programme to help them save money and become more efficient with their resources.

The EMS Club will assist businesses to understand and implement an environmental management system in a methodical, concise and staged manner through a series of workshops designed to encourage knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer networking. In addition businesses participating in The Club will have access to additional ‘one-to-one’ support to help them assess the priority areas within their organisation in terms of EMS implementation.

The Club will be run as a series of ‘hubs’ across the region so as to make the support as accessible as possible to small businesses with limited time available for such activities.

The EMS Club will really benefit those smaller organisations for whom an environmental management system would help achieve positive change, but who don’t have the resources or knowledge to get started. Each of The EMS Club hubs will be run by experienced professionals well versed in the implementation of environmental management systems and who have the ability to share this knowledge in straightforward manner.

Interested parties need to visit the Resource Efficiency East website at www.resourceefficiencyeast.org.uk/the-ems-club.asp to check their eligibility and to register their interest in participating in The EMS Club. Whilst there is no closing date to register your interest, The Club will be limited to one hundred SMEs from the East of England.

To fill in the background Resource Efficiency East is a £2.1 million co-funded programme that runs until 2011 and is managed by Renewables East. The programme is jointly funded by the East of England Development Agency and the European Regional Development Fund to deliver specialist advice, guidance and support on how businesses in the East of England can improve their resource efficiency and realise the business benefits that result.

We deliver these services as part of Improving Your Resource Efficiency, one of a suite of publicly funded business support products and services in the Solutions for Business Portfolio; services designed to help businesses start, grow and succeed.

Since we started we have already provided over 160 companies with a free on-site Business Resource Review that includes a bespoke report and action plan helping to identify opportunities to become more efficient and cut costs through reduced use of water, energy and materials.

The programme aims to help businesses in the East of England save over £3.5 million, whilst significantly reducing CO2 emissions, energy and water usage and diverting waste from landfill.

Renewables East is a private and not-for-profit company delivering the services associated with being the renewable energy agency for the East of England. The Company is core-funded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) and officially designated as an EEDA partner organisation. Renewables East’s primary work areas are Bioenergy (Biomass and Biofuels,) Offshore/Onshore Wind, Planning, Supply Chain Development and the on-site renewables agenda.