Cutting through the red tape of going green


Get green credentials to get ahead in procurement tenders


Whilst customer demand and increasing attention to costs has focused businesses on resource efficiency,many smaller companies still perceive barriers including a lack of skills, uncertainty around relevance, potential savings and accessing the free and subsidised support available. The public sector - fromdistrict councils to London 2012 - are increasingly making demands on new and existing suppliers to share their values andmeet stakeholder expectation.


SimonBest, eco efficiency expert and Manager of REV ACTIVE - an innovative new business resource efficiency demonstration project - provides practical advice on how tomake “going green” pay real dividends in the current climate.


Business resource efficiency is just doing things differently to do more with less; an opportunity to


reduce operating costs and improve profit margins.We’re told that theUK economy is reckoned to be around 10% resource efficient; just 10% of rawmaterials and effort is converted into sellable products or services.


There are obvious business drivers for stripping out associated costs and inefficiencies: it consistently delivers bottom line benefits, payback periods are typically short, there are numerous low cost/no cost opportunities for most companies and commensurate environmental benefits. The barriers - or perceived barriers - are a lack of capital, time, awareness of the issues and uncertainties around support available, relevance and payback. Many companies still employ theCATNAP strategy: Cheapest Available Technology Narrowly Avoiding Prosecution.


Depending upon how much you’ve done already, low cost and no cost action can typically deliver energy efficiency savings of 10-20% andwater efficiencies of 25%+ annually. Waste segregation and recycling is less clear cut. Perhaps themost overlooked opportunity is regular vehicle and equipmentmaintenance, which can often cut running costs by up 20%. In terms of focusing effort, it all comes back to reduce, reuse, recycle. For this exercise, we mightwish to


Delivered by Funded by The REV ACTIVE Team hard at work


www.revactive.co.uk Improving Your Resource Efficiency


prefix “eliminate, minimise” to cover energy,waste and water. In the case of waste andwater, you could also append “dispose”.


Energy is an obvious one. Solid waste is, perhaps, less obvious.We use a range of euphemisms to dress it up: byproduct, offcut, dross, swarf, edge trim, cullet, samples, overlap and even packaging. But anymaterial not ending up in a sellable product is effectively waste and subject to disposal costs and landfill tax.Water’s the tricky one. It’s often overlooked still or treated as a fixed overhead.We typically pay to pipe it in, pay to do somethingwith it and then pay to have it taken away as sewerage or trade effluent.We heat it, cool it, vaporise it, pressurise it, mix it with costly additives and often clean it before disposal.


Awealth of support is available out there, fromself-help to hands-on experts. TheWRAPprogramme provides for the former - Government funded generic resource efficiency support to businesses, industry and consumers. Sub-regional programmes like REV ACTIVE are tied to economic development and provide direct, hands-on assistance for businesses to cut costs through utilities management and improved efficiency.


Five practical steps:


• Measure to manage: Where are yourmeters? Where are your records? Where do you usematerials, water and energy? What are the locations, volumes and character of waste generation?


• Benchmark: Compare yourself to peers, competitors and industry norms to highlight immediate opportunities. Look online for free benchmarking tools.


• Identify opportunities: Arm yourself with a clipboard and take the tour. Quantify your utilities to attribute wastage and focus on key cost savings.


• Prioritise: Get themost gain for the least pain. Highlight the biggest impacts and shortest payback periods.


• Action: Distribute responsibilities and targets to those with the ability to exert direct control then monitor progress.


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