To help achieve its vision of a district that remains an attractive, sustainable business environment, South Hams District Council has built environmentally friendly employment units in Totnes. The units at Babbage Court conform to BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assesment Method) standards and demonstrate that sustainability can be cost effective and attractive to tenants.
The success of these units has allowed the council to undertake a similar project to build three new environmentally friendly employment units in Dartmouth.
'Sustainability underpins future profits' Sir Neville Simms, CEO, Carillion |
Sustainable Practices Save Businesses Money
Adopting basic sustainable business practices can save businesses money. Such measures include:
- Waste minimisation e.g. reduced packaging
- Energy saving
- Water saving
- Recycling of materials
- Cleaner processes
- Buying local products
- Home working
- Promoting car sharing
Additional benefits are the social and environmental impacts of such measures. For information on sustainable business practices contact EnVision, Envirowise and the Carbon Trust.
| Envision services include: |
Envirowise services include: |
Carbon Trust services include: |
| subsidised, tailored support & advice to SMEs |
online, sector-based information & advice |
advice on cost cutting through energy saving |
| environmental audit |
free advisor visits |
sector & size based information |
| environmental staff training |
helpline advice |
energy efficiency interest free loans |
| local market development |
free local events & workshops |
free site surveys |
Landfill Tax Credit Scheme
Nationally we are generating some 400m tonnes of waste each year and this is growing by 3% each year. Industrial and commercial waste accounts for around 20% of total waste and over half of this goes to landfill. Neither landfilling nor incineration provide sustainable long term solutions for dealing with the level of waste on this scale. Government introduced the Landfill Tax to stimulate reductions in the levels of business waste. ENTRUST was established in 1996 to regulate the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme (LTCS) with the approval of HM Customs and Excise.
Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW)
The Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) Programme has been created to return additional landfill tax receipts to business, from April 2005, in a way that supports businesses by improving their waste management and resource efficiency.
In 2004: - Just over half of businesses in the South Hams (53%) had an environmental policy.
- ‘Land based industries’ and those with large turnovers were much more likely to have an environmental policy than other businesses
- Reasons for not having a policy include:
- Not considered it (44%)
- Not considered it important (26%)
- Unaware of benefits (23%)
- Need help to achieve it (8%) - Most common environmental friendly measures (unchanged from 2001) are:
- Recycling
- Buying locally
- Energy and water saving [Source: South Hams Business Survey 2004] |
Guidance For Businesses On Environmental Legislation
The NetRegs website is free to use and is regularly updated. Its aim is to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK to understand the complex environmental regulations that can affect them. The site provides guidance on how to comply with environmental law as well as advice on good environmental practice.
Sources of Sustainability Advice for Business
Our South West provides a list of sources of business sustainability advice.
