If you are a senior manager or owner of an SME and you aren’t worried about the future of your business or its day-to-day workings, then this blog probably isn’t for you; but don’t worry, feel free to have a read anyway!
Now, if you happen to actually be working your proverbial butt off trying to keep dozens of plates spinning maybe we can help. Running an SME in the UK is hard, despite the fact that nearly 90% of all UK businesses fall into this category. Environmental management can be an entire box of extra plates to spin. So, how do you make it work?
Here are some of our thoughts:
Carbon reduction and enviromental management
The UK started the high-level concerns about greenhouse gases and the seriousness of damaging our planets eco system. In 2015, we, like most other nations, signed the Paris agreement, which committed all those present to limit the impact of climate change by altering the activities which were causing the damage.
Ten years on, those changes haven’t really been followed and the increase in the world’s temperature has grown quicker than expected.
At present it looks like the UK, along with other countries are going to miss the targets they set in 2015, which is embarrassing for politicians, so what? Well the truth is that everybody should be concerned about this, the damage to the worlds eco-system will affect most of those on the planet in one way or another.
In the UK, a governments biggest stick to control people with has two ends, Fines and Taxes. Those are what will be used, to make sure the anything you as a business (that affects the environment) complies with their obligations. These costs are then going to steadily increase until you comply.
A Simple Solution:
Your business has an impact on the environment, we all do. ISO 14001 includes a simple, straight forward methodology for reducing your environmental impact, keeping you within the agreed limits, and hence avoiding the tolls and fines which are coming.
Interested in ISO 1400?
Learn more about how it can help your business reduce its environmental impact and avoid costly penalties.
The methodology
Think of the environmental impacts of your business, list them even. How can you control them? How do you keep operational costs down while avoiding fines and breeching the environmental regulations that should help the planet survive. You could invent some new way to do this, or, alternatively, you could implement ISO 14001. This is an internationally agreed best practice framework on how to manage and reduce environmental impact; the processes and approaches used in this system will free up time so you can keep your other plates spinning.
The Reasoning
As touched on in our previous blog; here: www.independentqualityservice.com/smes-enviromental-impact-carbon-reduction/ the majority of businesses will likely find themselves working for the government in one way or another eventually. Governments simply have to implement a ‘trickle-down approach’ in order to force environmental compliance. They stipulate it as a mandatory aspect of all their contracts and hey presto, you as a small independent business end up on the receiving end. It might be six-degree’s of separation but the gov will lean on their tier-one suppliers who in turn will pass it along to theirs, and so on, eventually meaning you too.
Carbon Reduction and Waste Segregation are coming your way…
Carbon reduction plans started being required for NHS contracts around 12-18 months ago. In some cases before the content of such plans was even agreed! The approved structure of plans splits emissions into three categories. It’s possible to make a justified effort at calculating the first two categories, but even now category three, the emissions caused in your supply chain are still almost impossible to reliably estimate.
BUT, requirements aren’t just to plan. Going forward there is a need for that to be updated, and over a period of time you are going to have to show that the emissions you generate are decreasing, or loss of the contract, fines and charges are likely to follow.
Again, using the ISO 14001 best practice can keep you in line here and its methodology assists with reducing your emissions and environmental impact.
Segregating Waste
More regulations, targets, taxes and fines are on the way. Having a simple methodology to address them and keep you up to date is the ONLY way to keep your business within the agreed budgets and costs. You can struggle with this, on top of all the other difficulties of running a business, or you could just adopt ISO 14001 and reduce the plates you’re spinning before they come crashing down.
If you’d like to know more why not drop us a line and if we can help your business to lower its environmental impact we will.
Contact us HERE
No AI was used to write this post, so the spelling and grammatical errors are all mine, and the result of a UK, state provided, education 😊, for which I remain, most thankful.