How to become green, and stay green

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Please take a look at our latest article on Business Green - my top tips on greening your business and maintaining those changes to feel long term benefits. 

I hope there's something in here that you can take away and implement - whether it's at home or work. 

 CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE

Feedback is welcome - get in touch via Twitter @GreenAchiever 

Christmas Tree Recycling

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Shropshire Council and their waste contractor Veolia are launching a Christmas tree ‘amnesty’ this new year, to make sure trees don’t go to waste.

This means that for the first few weeks of January 2014 you can recycle real Christmas trees simply by putting them out for collection along with your garden waste.

All real Christmas trees collected will be ‘recycled’ (actually they get sent for composting) and turned into valuable soil improver for local farmers and gardeners. 

Top tips 

• Make sure you put the tree out on the correct day for your garden waste collection. Check your collection timetable via shropshire.gov.uk/binday
• Make sure your tree is out on the kerbside by 7am as the collection crews start work early.
• If you can, please try to get the tree into your garden waste bin to make it easier for the collection staff.
• If you cannot fit your tree into the garden waste bin, you may on this occasion leave the tree next to your garden waste bin, but please take care to avoid blocking the pavement or causing a trip hazard.
• To help the collection staff handle them and make sure that they fit into the vehicles, please cut up any extra large trees to a maximum 5 foot (1.5m) lengths.
• Please make sure you remove any tinsel, fairy lights and other decorations first.  These are not compostable.

ISO 14001: It's not for everyone, especially SME's.

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ISO 14001 makes it easy for large businesses to demonstrate their environmental credentials, however this heavyweight accreditation is not suitable for all businesses. Due to the cost of attaining ISO 14001, the various steps required to meet the criteria, and the year on year measurement of improvement, many SME's do not have the resources or finances to tackle and maintain it. 

Although it is credited with being the 'best' and most widely recognised environmental accreditation, the aforementioned SME's are missing out. Procurement teams will look for businesses to have some evidence of an Environmental Management System (EMS), and although ISO 14001 demonstrates this, many companies just want a certificate! 

That is why we provide Silver and Gold accreditation. It helps SME's to get a foot in the door and acts as a stepping stone for larger businesses approaching ISO 14001. We also make sure businesses keep moving forward by agreeing on actions for the future. To see a comparison between Silver/Gold and ISO 14001, click here. 

This post was inspired by an article from the Guardian 'ISO 14001: Loved by procurement, hated by SME's'.  It makes for a good read and explains the problems faced by small businesses looking to gain recognition for their environmental commitments.

If you are interested in what the Green Achiever Scheme can bring to your business, or are simply curious about environmental accreditation in general, give us a call on 01743 343 403 or e-mail info@greenachiever.co.uk 

Science for Environment Policy

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An article, recently published by the EU, sheds light on how environmental schemes which encourage and celebrate green behaviors actually help to promote further eco-friendly behaviors. 

Businesses that pursue independent environmental accreditation not only benefit from the obvious outcomes, but also feel satisfaction by excelling in an area that many businesses neglect. 

Read  the article here: EU Science for Environment Policy

Why independent accreditation pushes businesses in the right direction...

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This week, we stumbled across some information which explains very well how environmental accreditation can help businesses to become more sustainable. 

It makes for an interesting read and gives some good reasons as to why it's worth investing in your green side!

http://urbantimes.co/magazine/2012/11/accreditation-schemes-the-push-businesses-need-to-go-green/

Although it focuses on multi-national corporations, green accreditation is just as worthwhile for SME's. Take a look at our website www.greenachiever.co.uk to find out more on how environmental credentials are becoming essential. 

Tickets.com - Gold Green Achievers

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Milton Keynes based Tickets.com, which specialises in providing integrated ticketing solutions designed to enable entertainment and sports organisations to sell tickets to consumers using their own brands, has attained gold standard status for the second year running. Having originally signed up to Green Achiever in May 2009, Tickets.com, which also has offices in Europe, the US, Asia Pacific and Africa, initially gained silver status in March 2011 and its first gold in June last year.

Daniel Burrows, internet services specialist at Tickets.com, said: “Despite many organisational changes, we have constantly maintained our level of environmental friendly commitment and will be implementing new ideas and plans for the future. For example, to better manage energy consumption, all employees and clients are now encouraged to reduce business travel by use of WebEx, training facilities are hired in a central location rather than have everyone travel long distances and the company has reduced its car pool from six to two.

“In the office, employees use energy efficient laptops and take them home with the power cable so as not to create residual energy draw happening while they are switched off. All the kettles have been replaced with a Burco to reduce the constant re-heating of water and all the chairs are now repaired and recycled rather than scrapped. We are currently engaging with our new landlord about us having more control over energy costs and consumption such as the lighting, ventilation and heating systems.”

www.tickets.com/uk

What happens when you sign up to Green Achiever

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I thought i'd take this opportunity to 'reboot' the Green Achiever blog and to share with you what happens when you sign up with the Green Achiever Scheme. 

Step 1 - Registration 

Every single business that has had anything to do with the Green Achiever Scheme has to register first. This process involves filling in some details and a short questionnaire about your green practices. Once this is done, the team gets an e-mail that is then processed in order to a) get your details onto our Green Business Directory and to b) compose an 'Environmental Healthcheck'. The purpose of this document is to give you some information on which environmental laws will apply to you to make sure you are compliant. 

This level of membership lasts for three months. We do this because, whilst it is great that you are showing intention to be a green business/gain green credentials, we want Green Achiever businesses to make some progress - with guidance from us of course. 

Step 2 - Self-Assessed Award

Some businesses go straight to this level, however most Green Achievers will be with us as 'Registered' before they take the next step. We charge £120+ VAT for this service because it's more labour intensive for us and, for you, there are many more benefits. 

After payment, we send you a form which is pretty in-depth. It's important that this is answered as carefully and as honestly as possible so we get an accurate idea of where you are with environmental matters. If we get your form back with all boxes ticked, it makes it really tough to judge what you ACTUALLY do and what you've claimed to do. Either way, you probably won't get 5 stars via this route - it would be unfair on all the other businesses. 

Once we get the form back, we do a few things with your answers. First we check out your website to get an idea of what kind of business you are. This is important because we then carry out a 'Star rating' process which determines your overall score. From your answers, we then make an Environmental Declaration of Commitment or a 'policy'.  This is a very handy document. Display online, in a frame on the wall, use it to apply for tenders or keep it for use in employee handbooks. The best bit is that, when you renew your membership the year after, we take into account your progress and this is incorporated into the policy. You also get a certificate, a years listing on the directory plus fortnightly environmental updates. 

Step 3 - Silver & Gold Awards

Silver and Gold awards are for any business that:

• Is serious about proving their green credentials. 
• Needs higher level accreditation to compete with others in their industry. 
• Is aiming for ISO 14001 and wants a 'stepping stone' to help it along. 
• Seeks cost savings through making changes to environmental operations on a day to day basis.
• Wishes to benefit from substantial PR opportunities arising from going over and above what is expected from businesses. 
• Would benefit from guidance, year on year, to continuously improve and reduce its environmental impact and to also stay on top of new legislation. 
• Trades in an industry where environmental legislation is particularly 'tight' and needs to stay on top of its environmental impact. 

These levels are entirely different from Self-Assessed because we come to you. Our fantastic auditor, Debbie, comes to your site to see what you actually do. This isn't a test, it's just so that we get a thorough idea of how your business works so we can then identify areas in which improvements can be made. This may be small things like "Your waste plasterboard needs segregating from general waste" to bigger actions like "You have a south facing roof - perhaps look into installing solar panels". All these actions are agreed and we set loose deadlines to encourage progress. 

This level costs between £330 and £660 depending on the number of employees you have which is a competitive rate in comparison with other environmental certification/awards/accreditation. 

As long as there is green ambition, continuous improvements year on year and the commitment is real, we are happy to award accreditation - it's as simple as that.