What do you think defines your business as Eco Friendly?

[MSC]

At BoBelle all our products are produced under fair trade conditions

HI Claire, do you mind expanding on what you mean with regards to 'under fair trade conditions'?

My business is eco friendly and ethical because the products are hand made in micro batches (no huge factories creating waste or pollution), bottled in recyclable glass and packaged in recycled and recyclable or bio degradeable packaging. Invoices are going to be sent electronically and any marketing material eg flyers are going to be printed by Ray on recycled card. The ingredients are all natural (truly 100% natural, although I am fully aware that the words 'natural' and 'organic' are marketing buzzwords and open to interpretation ) and they help to make you look and feel good naturally, as close to Mother Nature as is safe and practical

[CWS]

Hi there, sorry for the late reply, was out and about all weekend!

With regards to all of BoBelle's products, when we refer to fairly traded we mean that no artisan has been negotiated on price, each artisan works under safe and comfortable working conditions and each artisan is paid well-above the minimum wage. As a result, every artisan is proud of the work that they do.

I wholeheartedly encourage fair trade behaviour and support local and small businesses as much as possible. I think it is incredibly sad that we are living in the 21st century and that small specialist shops are closing like wild fire. I have avoided the corporate route and decided to set-up BoBelle from scratch. It has not been easy and I have had to move home to save on rent, but hopefully business will increase and people will stop spending at Primark etc and question more about the ethics of their choices. Only when the 'fast fashion' bubble has burst will entrepreneurs and like-minded business people have the courage to set-up shop again. Let's just hope it's not too late....

Claire

[brainstorm]

It is hard to be completely eco friendly, when as a country we still have a long way to go in implementing green policies. Some companies like to pay lip service to eco friendliness with a little carbon offsetting, such as planting a couple of trees somewhere, while whole forests are being cut down in Brazil. Businesses rely on external sources for so much of their activity that we all need to work together on this eco journey.

However, I think the overiding issue is to make the right choices that benefit sustainability, high levels of recycling and reductions in pollution. Ultimately I feel that a lot of going green must be imposed through legislation.

[Chris Straker]

Making headway now as joined Ethical Junction and Go Green initiative.

[SimonG]

Service side -

Our business specialises in energy reduction consultancy and solutions within IT. It's estimated that on average 425kWh is wasted within the office environment per employee per annum. Our business identifies, reports on and then eliminates this waste. If everyone in the UK adopted our solutions we would save around £700 million and 3.3 million tonnes of CO2. This is before we change any ways of working. And because our solutions are inexpensive with a return within a couple of years we hope that business wont have an excuse not to use us.

"green" side

We are almost paperless and what little we do use is printed on 100% recycled paper care of Ray. We have got rid of one of the cars and now try and take public transport wherever possible. We hope to reduce our CO2 by 10 tonnes per annum just by doing this. We have even cut out the school run by cycling. Energy wise we practice what we preach and are in the process of reducing consumption by 30% even though we have brought the office into our home.

Waste wise we have halved our rubbish due to a change in shopping habits and the addition of a compost heap. We are just waiting for a green cone to be delivered for the stuff that cant go in compost bin. All tins, plastic, paper and card gets recycled although we are working hard to minimise that as well.

We are just investigating rainwater harvesting as this is the next project followed by solar heating and then PV - both of which depend on the governments long overdue scheme which should be announced next year. (see the consultation paper published last Thursday)

Overall I think a "green" business always needs to be looking at ways to improve.

[Rob_Buckley]

I would say one way of checking to see if a company is environmentally aware is to find out if they have certification against ISO 14001. This is an international standard for environmental management systems.

Any company can obtain ISO 14001, and it's goal is working towards continual improvement of their environmental impact.

This covers a multitude of areas, from spillage prevetion, to noise pollution, re-cycling, energy usage etc etc so tackles all of their enviromental impact areas.

It's a simple guide, however it's also worth checking their certification is UKAS accredited (or similar) which ensures it has been implemented and assessed to the international guidelines.

Might help some people to decide who they deal with, and also set a few people thinking about whether it is something their business would like to be able to demonstrate.

Rob

[nick.rajhans]

Hi,

We do provide Solar water heating solutions to both residential and commercial customers all over England.

Please feel free to reach us for any help or consultation on Solar Systems.

For more information you can visit us at solarwaterheating.eu

Cheers

Nick Rajhans

[Alvin]

Now we is big time Green.

http://www.wind-farm.biz/

Alvin

[OtisOgle]

What makes our company green?

Well the software we provide enables people to work from home, giving them the ability to run their whole business from anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. This makes us green because we take out the travel element, leaving less pollution.

You do not need servers in the offices, so savings on electricity, as well as this being green friendly.

As this product is a online piece of software, we additionaly do not have to send out packaging, or use postal services, as it can be implemented from our side, over to your side, no packaging, no shipping.

Furthermore our service provides full online support and is hosted by us, so you don't need any maintenance guys driving down (pollution) fixing all your servers ect..

That's why we're green!!

-Otis

[JulieChocolate]

Living consciously is the key, then everything else follows naturally. You can't help it.
Julie Chocolate