Enviro-Mentor

Save money by carrying out wastage audits

By reducing your waste disposal volumes, you can reduce your costs. By increasing your recycling rates you may even create an income stream that you had not thought of! I can show you what options might be open to you. If you can save 5%, that comes straight off your bottom line. How much more would you have to produce to create an extra 5% income? I can help you with analysing your wastes, to see if you can recycle more.

Quantify your energy usage

Collect data on your energy use patterns, and identify where your high usages are - you can't manage what you can't measure! You will see that by saving money on your utilities, you are also saving carbon emissions - and therefore being kinder to the environment. I can work with you to help you identify any savings that you can make.

Train your staff

This will increase workplace morale and change their mindset. Motivated staff are safer and more productive whilst at the same time happier about it! You will have less wastage of raw materials, fewer workplace accidents, less mangement time will be taken up with unproductive investigations and your overall resource efficiency will increase for little effort on your part. I can tailor a training programme to fit your specific needs.

I can train suitable staff to be your own in-house auditors, so that your management system remains fully in your control, and keep your administration costs to a minimum.

Expand your market

I can show you how you could find attitional opportunities to sell your products or services.

If you've ever been worried about the costs of using an Environmental Consultant, here are a few good reasons to use Enviro-Mentor:

1. Enviro-Mentor does not have to pay huge back-office costs that the larger consultants do, and so Enviro-Mentor can pass these savings on to you - as much as half the fees of a larger consultancy, making Enviro-Mentor very cost-effective.

2. Enviro-Mentor can apply for central government funding for SMEs with 5 - 250 employees to get a 50:50 match funding for you, providing your project will increase your resource efficiency. This would include installing an environmental management system, or purchasing energy-saving equipment. For more details please see my website at www.enviro-mentor.com as there is currently a cut-off date by which any project must be completed.

Installing an Environmental Management System (EMS) accredited to ISO14001:2004
By David Lucioni BSc.(Hons)

1. Why do you want an EMS?
2. What's involved in installing an EMS
3. What the approximate costs would be

Why do you want an EMS?
Managing your costs
An effective EMS will give you the tools to manage your costs
“You can't manage what you can't measure”
You will have a structure that will enable you to assess different energies, suppliers, create a business plan where your environmental costs are considered every time
Regular management reviews will ensure you are in control at every stage
You will save money!

Increase market share/sales
Customers' awareness of the environmental costs of business means that they are starting to demand proof that what they are purchasing has minimised all environmental impacts wherever possible
Where this can be proved, more market opportunities become available
An accredited EMS, to ISO14001:2004 (or EMAS) is the best proof, as it is independently assessed
Credibility
Many large multinationals take for granted that their size gives them credibility
To have an accredited EMS proves that you have at least the same standard of management expertise and professionalism
You then have the ability to play to your strengths, where small size give you added benefits for your customer – service, quality, flexibility – without your customers sacrificing anything they would get from a multinational

“It's the right thing to do”
The world population is expanding exponentially
Increased resource use is inevitable
Climate change is now inevitable, but we can still slow its effects
We all need to reduce our environmental footprint for the future of our children
Sound environmental practices have been shown to be cost-effective – a 'win-win' situation!

What is involved in installing an EMS?
The ISO14001 Standard requires a detailed understanding of its individual sections, but briefly:
1. Environmental Policy
2. Assessment of your Environmental Aspects (Risks)
3. Assessment of all legislation & other requirements you are subject to
4. Setting of your environmental objectives and targets
5. Competence, training & awareness
6. Communication
7. Documentation
8. Emergency preparedness & response
9. Evaluation of compliance
10. Nonconformity, corrective and preventive action
11. Internal audit
12. Management review

The approximate costs of installing an EMS
How much consultancy time you will need depends on a number of variables:-
1. The size and scope (complexity) of your business
2. The level of expertise within your organisation, and how much development work you are able to do yourselves
3. Your consultant's day rates
4. However there are some fixed costs, outside the control of your consultant (whoever you choose!)
Approximate Third Party costs (in addition to my fees)
You will need your own copy of The ISO14001:2004 Standard, £124 from the BSI Group (.pdf download)
Third party consultant's fees - all approximate - (year 1):-
Initial (gap) audit: 1 day @ £675 - £900
First audit: 1 day @ £675 - £900
Certification audit: 2 days @ £1350 - £1800
Years 2 & 3 are generally 1 surveillance audit
1 day at £675 - £900
All plus expenses, e.g. hotel, mileage at £0.45 per mile)

For more information please contact me
David Lucioni BSc.(Hons)
Trading as Enviro-Mentor
5 Howard Close
Okehampton
Devon
EX20 1UJ
Mobile: 07815-500389
Email: david@enviro-mentor.com

The Environment has always been a popular topic, and the average lay person now has a more sophisticated understanding and appreciation of the complexities of how our planet works, and what the difference is between global warming and 'weather'. I will not therefore labour these points.

The problem as I see it is that we are in danger of falling out of love with The Environment through apathy and bad leadership from the government of the day – and I do not intend to bang any particular political drum – I believe today they are all as bad as each other, and The Government has badly let its people down through its own shortsightedness. As long as The Government thinks in blocks of 4 – 5 years, thinking that they may or may not be re-elected based on short term goals, the Environment can never be very high on the political agenda because to reduce the effects of global clime change requires long-term planning – in excess of 10 years. The only way out of this is to take the Environment away from all political influences and commission a permanent policy group of environmental specialists supported by selected government ministers.

Today Mr. Average is better informed, better educated and now beginning to care about The Environment, but those to whom he looks for guidance and example – Government and Business – have a very poor understanding of the needs of our global ecosystem to be sustainable, or really just don't care (unless it affects sales). They lack the imagination to come up with policies/projects that will provide true leadership and inspire societies to become more sustainable. And when Mr. Average is constantly being told such things as 'recycle more', 'produce less waste', and accept putrescible waste collections fortnightly, nearly all his efforts are being thwarted by for example: (1) big businesses insisting on over-packaging virtually every product, (2) BOGOF deals at supermarkets encouraging him to buy more than he needs, and (3) precious little real encouragement from Government to 'go green'.

At the moment our government is hiding behind the excuse that we are in a recession and there is not much money about (unless you are a Banker), and so they cannot invest in environmental projects. They cite the needs of big business to invest in the economy to get it moving again, relying on 'market forces'. BUT the government forget just how many small businesses there are that work tirelessly propping up the bigger businesses with their imaginative enterprise – and it is these people who must be encouraged to expand as we don't really have much manufacturing industry left here in the UK anymore. With a little imagination the government today could create a huge difference to a small section of the market, create more jobs and expertise, boost the 'Big Society' and all at very little cost.

Here is a short list of my suggested policies:
1. Zero Rate Stamp Duty for ALL houses professionally retro-fitted with approved (and VAT-free) renewable energy technologies such as ground-sourced heat pumps, solar PV and hot water, microgeneration wind turbines, hydro-electric power and wood-fuel heat (possibly CHP). The properties must be at least 50% carbon neutral when taking into consideration the total CO2 output if no technology was in place.
This would cost the government very little – but it would send a clear message to society that it is serious about creating a country that is looking after the environment
Create demand for newer, specialist manufacturing and installation companies
Create a regulatory need (which could be met by building surveyors at the time a building is sold)
Increase the demand for domestic scale renewable technologies, encouraging (British) innovation
Give an opportunity for large, expensive properties to mitigate otherwise punitive taxes, thus creating a 'top-down' demand for renewable technologies. By the laws of supply and demand this would reduce the cost of retro-fitting for less well-off sectors of society, so that everybody can benefit
2. Zero Rate VAT & Stamp Duty for ALL new houses that can be shown to be 100% carbon neutral in terms of their ongoing energy needs. This can be brought about immediately by changing nothing more than the Building Regulations. Architects and the construction industry have known about the technologies required for years, and have only themselves to blame if they cannot react in time. Houses were built to a very high energy efficiency specification in the 1970's in Milton Keynes.
The laws of supply & demand will mean that the cost of retro-fitting these technologies will decrease, as in (1.) above.
3. Ban disposal of untreated waste in centralised landfills. All waste should be treated either anaerobically with energy recovery as biogas in smaller, district-sized digesters. The treated waste would be less bulky, less smelly, less polluting and could be used on land as a soil improver or dried and finally incinerated to provide yet more energy for the local community.
4. Require all new houses to have rainwater and greywater storage for irrigation. I know we are not short of water overall, but global climate change suggests that the weather patterns in the UK will give much more stormy, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers creating more demand for water when supplies will be at their lowest.
5. Ban all new vehicle registrations that have a CO2 emission level over 200gCO2/km by 2020 AND carry out the testing in 'real-world' situations so that manufacturers can't 'fudge' the results to 'scrape into the lower tax bracket' as they do today. Manufacturers regularly claim figures of 75m.p.g. when owners can only manage a realistic 55m.p.g. for the same vehicle. This would send a clear signal to manufacturers who are always making vehicles bigger, heavier and more thirsty. If introduced over an extended period of, say 5 years, with the threshold decreasing on a year-on-year basis with a target of 140g/km by 2025, manufacturers would have time to adjust its model range. Hugely expensive, prestige cars would die out naturally and be replaced by a newer type of prestige car for the image conscious. I am not against prestige cars per se, but the world is changing, and there can be no justification today for such over the top fuel consumption. I just don't think that manufacturers will do enough on their own unless given a push on a regular basis. They all have 'green' models in their ranges, but only sell a few as they all have a premium price..........

Many companies do not immediately make the connection between financial benefits and environmental beneifits. If you redefine both as resource efficiency - i.e. making more for less, then the similarities immediately appear.

Use less energy, staff or raw materials = less cost = increased resource efficiency!

Use less energy or raw materials = less earth resources used up = increased resource efficiency!

Create less waste = less raw materials used = increased resource efficiency!