EAST MIDLANDS
This month, the Chamber launches the Sustainable East Midlands campaign to support businesses of all shapes and sizes in engaging with the green agenda. Here, we explain why we’re doing this and why it’s time for organisations to look at how they can contribute – and benefit.
Why the Chamber is launching Sustainable East Midlands
In autumn last year, the United Nations said 2020 signalled the beginning of a Decade of Action as it gained global momentum for its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, while calling for “accelerating sustainable solutions to all the world’s biggest challenges”, including climate change. A lot has happened in the
intervening 12 months as Covid-19 has ripped through our lives, jobs and businesses. It has forced us to reassess how
we’d like to rebuild our economy and, if anything, the appetite for us to move towards a greener future has only intensified since the coronavirus outbreak. This begins at our own doorstep,
within the very organisations we own, run and work for. Sustainability is a topic that is
sometimes ignored – one that can be easy to flick past in pages like these or think it’s someone else’s responsibility to take. But there’s a number of reasons
why businesses should engage with an agenda that is becoming more prominent by each day, as evidenced by the Prime Minister’s recent pledge to make Britain a world leader in clean wind power and create tens of thousands of jobs in the process. Firstly, it’s the right thing to do.
All the science points to how, if we don’t act fast, the worst effects of climate change could be irreversible, bringing not just environmental degradation but huge social and economic problems in the future. But it also has an impact on the
bottom line for businesses. Just like the automotive industry is now beginning to shift from petrol and diesel to building electric cars because it has identified the direction of the market, engaging with sustainability will make our business community more competitive in the long term. Adopting greener credentials
reduces running costs and helps us win new contracts and business. It also makes the East Midlands more competitive as a region. It
44 business network November 2020
plays into our strengths as we have all the pieces of the sustainability jigsaw – the high energy users in manufacturing, the energy producers in our coal field heritage, and new hi-tech businesses coming out of our world-leading universities. The world is looking for solutions
to climate change – innovative products and services developed in South Normanton could have a transformative impact in South Africa – so there is a clear commercial purpose to this. Everyone has a role to play in
this green transition and, while the region’s crown jewels of Rolls- Royce, Toyota and Samworth Brothers are already reducing their carbon footprint, the overall success of this will be driven by SMEs, which make up 99% of all businesses. So it’s time for each of us to
change our thinking on this subject, take responsibility and reap the rewards. The Chamber, via our new
Sustainable East Midlands campaign, wants to highlight the opportunities available for businesses, examples of organisations already successfully engaged in the low-carbon agenda and the support available to those that want to learn more about how they can too. So keep an eye out on our
website for details of the grants and loans available, relevant events and other ways of finding support. This is indeed a decade of action
and it needn’t be a frightening one, but an exciting period in the future of our region’s business community.
To find out more, visit
www.emc-dnl.co.uk/sustainability
‘Engaging with sustainability will make our business community more competitive in the long term’
SUSTAINABLE
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