The
Background to the SUSTAIN SMS Toolkit
“Sustainable Business isn’t rocket science – it’s just making
a list of the things you need to worry about in a 20 year time
frame and then doing something about it.”
Liz Anderson Airbus UK
The
SUSTAIN SMS Toolkit came from a belief that managing a business
so as to have a long-term relationship with our planet means that
each business has to address its key social, economic and environmental
issues. To do this the SUSTAIN SMS project was set up.
Horizon
SW brought together eight companies and organisations in the South
West with eight environmental business support advisors from the
Horizon SW network project. Together they had huge expertise
in environmental issues in areas as diverse as waste minimisation,
ISO14001 environmental management and community regeneration from
which to formulate best practice. The SUSTAIN SMS project participants
were determined to cut through some of the mystique that too often
obscures “Sustainability” and invent some practical methods to
help business get to grips with the issues. And to make it usable
they wanted it to be no more than a dozen pages. The resultant
Toolkit has been built and tested by business and Horizon SW is
now encouraging its use in business across the South West.
The
SUSTAIN SMS Toolkit
The
Toolkit identifies four steps that we believe are required. (See
below). These will give you a prioritised list of sustainable
issues from which you can build an Action Plan for the short term
and – much more challenging - one to give you a 20 year vision
of what your company’s sustainable profile needs to be. We hope
the toolkit will provide you with the confidence to go to the
Managing Director and present a hardheaded business case for setting
out on the journey to a sustainable business.”
The
toolkit has now been distributed to the 25 organisations that
make up Horizon SW for them to disseminate to their client companies
and organisations through out the South West. A total of 30 practitioners
from the Horizon SW Network have been trained in its use and Horizon
SW organisations are encouraged to use the Toolkit as part of
the services that they provide to the business community. It
is currently being used by a number of organisations – these include
Cornwall NHS and Airbus UK who are using it with selected companies
in their supply chain.
How
can you obtain a copy of the Toolkit?
It
is available to bona-fide organisations interested in improving
the sustainability of business from the SUSTAIN SMS Project Manager
at david@d-roe.freeserve.co.uk. You
will also be put in contact with a local practitioner who has
SUSTAIN SMS experience.
Who
was involved?
The
businesses and companies involved ranged from those employing
less than 100 such as Severnprint to hi-tech multinationals such
as Airbus UK. We found that the principles were common whether
making shoes or plastic components, running a local authority
or a operating a quarry. The Horizon SW advisors came from a
similar broad background with experience of working with hundreds
of businesses on practical environmental improvements across the
region.
Companies:
Airbus UK, Bristol City Council, Clarks, Greencare, RMC Aggregates
(SW), RW Simon, Severn Print, and South Gloucestershire Council
Practitioners:
Envolve, Filton Econet, Gloucester Green Business Club, Groundwork
SW, The Natural Step and the Western Partnership for Sustainable
Development
The
exploitation of the expertise gained so as to disseminate the
use of the Toolkit to a further 200 companies is planned and funding
is currently being sought by Horizon SW.
None
of this would have been achieved without the support of Environment
Agency, the Government Office for the South West, the SW Regional
Development Agency, the SIGMA Project and Horizon SW (who gratefully
acknowledge the continued support of GOSW and the Environment
Agency.)
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