Environmental Legislation Over-view

Thank you Business Environment Partnership (www.thebep.org.uk) and Edinburgh Council for today's workshop for smaller businesses on environmental legislation. With good input from SEPA on their advisory and monitoring roles.

Since 1990, enviro requirements on business have been mounting, thanks to European legislation. But exactly how that affects individual businesses can be tricky to work out. There's certainly no shortage of paid-for services to subscribe to, and consultants to lead you through the maze.

I'm very pleased to discover the excellent free resources at http://ping.fm/FwvKv which includes a questionnaire they created (http://ping.fm/iaVafnetregs/links/97472.aspx) where you can get a bespoke answer as to your environmental compliance requirements. It's apparently the same questionnaire that appears on the Business Link site (www.businesslink.gov.uk/), just in case you've been through that particular hoop already.

Once you have your legislation list, that's the foundation for your Environmental Management System (EMS). Then you need to to dig deeper to find out what you need to do about each individual piece of legislation by searching www.netregs.gov.uk. There's a free text box at the top right, but you can also run searches by business type, enviro topic, or go through current & future legislation. Netregs streams info according to location as the Scottish Parliament have their own variants, as do England & Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The Netregs site has been recently re-vamped so it's worth re-visiting if you haven't been there for a while.

You can sign up for their updates so you stay up-to-date.

There's enough info there to help you create your own Environmental Management System (EMS).
I'm told they are going to expand their e-learning tools for specific sectors. These currently cover agriculture plus food and drink.

Another way to get help with planning your EMS is to go in for the VIBES awards, Scotland's top environmental awards for business, which feed into the European environmental awards, with seriously good international publicity exposure and networking opportunities.

The VIBES application form covers the main building blocks you need and the feedback from the judges (free to all award applicants) will give you an expert steer. I used that to move our long-standing environment policy (first written in 1986, based on reduce, re-use and re-cycle) to a more sophisticated level encompassing carbon offsetting for necessary business energy use and travel. We got our expert feedback and followed the judges' advice. We entered again last year, to be rewarded with a place on the shortlist.

Once shortlisted, you receive an intensive visit from the judges, to prove you have demonstrated exceptional environmental performance, and of course, it's a great opportunity to get further bespoke advice. And we got serious new business enquiries at the awards ceremony itself, which was a welcome bonus.

One of the key messages I took away from today's workshop is that it's not enough to assume a waste contractor has the full range of licences they need for both transporting and disposing of different types of waste. You need to check this and be able to stream your waste for the most cost-effective disposal.

You also need to make sure that the paper trail is properly signed off when you hand over the responsibility for your waste to a contractor.

Otherwise, if your stuff is found dumped illegally, you can't prove you were not responsible and you will be held liable. That could mean a fine of several thousands of pounds.

PHPR collect VIBES awards 2009 certificate at Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh

Being good PR people, we spun our VIBES news round our contacts and have ended up seven positive results: several of which are really promising meeting requests.

There is also another agency wanting to know how to get the VIBES, so we've pointed them to the VIBES site where it's easy to download the entry forms and all the practical notes on the different award categories: http://www.vibes.org.uk/enter.htm

Plus Margot Grantham, the Scottish director of the excellent Athena network for women sent me a flyer with useful info regarding free recession-busting workshops in Edinburgh for small businesses run by the Business Environment Partnership alongside the City of Edinburgh Council. We are more than happy to pass this info on. The leaflet says:

As part of their Economic Resilience Action Plan the City of Edinburgh Council are working with the Business Environment Partnership to run a series of free workshops at the City of Edinburgh Council Chambers. Upcoming workshops are designed to give practical ideas to cut utility bill costs and understand current & future environmental legislation that may have a financial impact on your business.

Demystifying environmental legislation. What SME’s need to know to ensure compliance – 26th January 2010

Understand your utility bills to cut costs – 25th February 2010

They point out that a 20% cut in energy costs represents the same bottom line benefit as a 5% increase in sales....

The ‘One-Stop-Shop’ provides free tailored advice to any Edinburgh-based company from a microsized start-up to a larger SME. Advice ranges from Government funded grants & loans, resource efficiency, green marketing opportunities to legislation with the aim of identifying cost saving or new sales opportunities for businesses.

Find out more about the workshops or their free advisory service at http://www.thebep.org.uk/ The lady dealing with registrations is called Amy.

Is PHPR Scotland's Greenest PR Agency?

PHPR is delighted that we received a VIBES Scotland shortlisted certificate at the awards ceremony held in the Scottish Parliament last night. VIBES are Scotland's top environmental awards for business. http://www.vibes.org.uk/

We had a serious new business enquiry just after the awards ceremony and we will be fixing up an initial meeting later on today: positive proof that VIBES awards are good for business.

The significance of getting this far in the VIBES awards was really brought home when David Sigsworth, chairman of SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) said, "The companies on the VIBES shortlist & the winners are recognised by multiple agencies and the Scottish Government for exceptional environmental performance."

PHPR was shortlisted for the best management award for small businesses (less than 50 employees). We are a very small business, and PR doesn't use lots of materials to manufacture things, so the savings we can make through environmental measures are quite small. But they do add up. We have been reducing, re-using and re-cycling since 1986. Each year we add to the eco measures we undertake and most of them benefit our bottom line. And we do help to spread the word and encourage other companies to gain the business benefits of implementing practical environmental measures.

We think we may be the first Scottish PR agency to get this far in the VIBES awards. Until we find out whether any other PR company has been recognised by VIBES for exceptional environmental performance in the last 10 years, we certainly can claim to be one of the greenest PR agencies in Scotland - and that's official!

We worked hard for that recognition. The VIBES awards are tough. Even after attending a half day course on building the business case for a VIBES award, we found the application process was very demanding. It took ages to pull together all the information and do the calculations to prove the savings we achieve. But at each stage we found out more about implementing green measures in business, and demonstrating the savings. And going through that process sparked off ideas for other measures we could try. Our first entry last year gave us really useful feedback from the expert judges - advice that we worked hard to implement before we entered VIBES this year. Yes, we did indeed put ourselves through the VIBES application process twice to get to this stage!

PHPR was one of nine Edinburgh businesses shortlisted:

• Aquamarine Power


• Balfour Beatty Rail


• Edinburgh Napier University


• Maximillion


• PHPR Ltd


• Prestonfield Hotel


• Rabbies Trail Burners


• Wilderness Scotland


• William Waugh
  

VIBES is a partnership between: Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Environmental Protection UK, Envirowise and NetRegs.
With support from Business Environment Partnership, CBI Scotland, Energy Saving Trust, Federation of Small Businesses Scotland and Forward Scotland.

Eco Car

Look out for Nissan's 'Leaf' in 2010 - an all-electric car doing 100 miles on a single charge and a top speed of 90mph.

We're currently up for a Scottish environmental award: VIBES, which may be a first for a Scottish PR agency? We have seen the business sense in "reduce, re-use, recycle" and have run our Edinburgh PR agency on that basis since 1986. Plus we do like to keep abreast of promising eco-tech developments.

VIBES awards - PHPR shortlisted for top Scottish environmental awards

Just got invite to the VIBES awards ceremony (Scotland's top eco awards for biz) at the Scottish Parliament. We're short-listed! Think that may be a first for a Scottish PR agency? Fingers crossed!

Fuel Cells Challenge

Carbon Trust's Polymer Fuel Cells Challenge has £8m to support projects that promise to slash the cost of fuel cells.

We're currently short-listed for a Scottish environmental award, which I think is quite unusual for a PR agency, so we keep an eye on new eco-tech developments. And situated on Edinburgh's sea-front, we are particularly interested in staying cosy!

Award-Winning Impact

This is the second of 30 low cost PR Techniques re-visited some 10 years after our MD's best selling DIY PR book was published.

Business Awards

Win an award and you are forever "an award-winning business".

Awards may not be the sole determining factor in getting a sale, but all things being equal, holding an award can tip the balance.

• Well respected awards are external recognition of your business.
• A relevant award could well increase your score in a formal procurement assessment or tendering process.
• It sounds impressive to be able to put 'an award-winning business" up on your website, and in your marketing and communications materials.
• Joining an award winning business will seem more attractive to potential recruit.
• Winning an award gives you an edge in the eyes of your advisers and investors, your peers, your neighbours, family and friends.
• But most of all, awards used well can make you and your staff feel more confident, and that shows through in everything you do.

Winning an award stacks up lots of positive benefits provided that you use the accolade well, and make sure everyone hears about it. That means publicising it in:

• newsletters,
• e-mailshots,
• on email and forum signatures,
• the relevant local and trade press, and any relevant membership magazines for trade or professional associations
• marketing & stationery materials, point of sale etc.

Great awards have great benefits, but they do take up time, so do take care to pick your awards carefully.

Some awards are much more respected than others, and some have very specific purposes. They broadly fall into the following groups:

1. General Business Awards - in the UK this includes the Queens Awards for Enterprise and the National Business Awards (with regional feeder awards).
2. Specific awards for industry sectors, often involving trade associations or specialists trade media
3. Environmental and CSR awards
4. Marketing awards and customer contact awards
5. Training awards

At PHPR we have an associate who specialises in winning awards for clients and gets great results. When offering this service, we always stress that half the battle is choosing the right awards to enter. That is echoed by the specialist BOOST award writing agency. They suggest that you look for awards that offer expert judge's feedback. That way, no matter what outcome, you have won expert external consultancy. We totally agree.

Using awards strategically is not a quick fix. It means choosing ones that will benefit your business most. Awards that you genuinely can address with cutting edge flair. Awards that will send out key messages that you know are important to deliver to the key target audiences you need to reach. Then implementing measures that will produce award-winning outstanding results for your business and its audiences.

For example: we have translated various scientific aspects of environmental technology into everyday English to publicise the benefits for clients' end users. Some of our clients are in property-related fields, where environmental standards increasingly matter. We think the environment is a key growth area and we determined that winning an environmental award would underline our abilities in this field. We intend to use it to spearhead a campaign to win more of this type of business. It also helps that we have a genuine interest in being a low carbon company and have, for example, reduced, re-used and recycled since 1986.

We targeted the VIBES awards, Scotland's premier environmental awards, run by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency - SEPA.

When we entered VIBES last year I knew we didn't have enough specialist environmental expertise to pull together a really good environmental plan. But I had seen the application form and understood that the VIBES application process effectively corals you into producing a rounded environmental plan if you address the questions. We didn't expect to win anything last year, nor did we. It was a learning experience, but we did get expert feedback. We also went on the Winning a VIBES award course where we met some of the judges and found out what they are looking for. We found that not only helpful, but inspiring.

The efforts are starting to pay off. This year we have been short-listed, which we are absolutely delighted about. We await the judges' visit next month. We're not a dedicated environmental specialist company so I don't know how we'll do, but we will do our best. But just being short-listed for VIBES should improve our credibility when it comes to convincing prospective clients that we can get their eco messages across.

Whatever award you decide to go for, and there are thousands out there to choose from, you won't be the only one that has seen the value in awards. Your application needs to stand out with good evaluation and impact measurement to prove the business case.

And going through an external judges visit really rams the importance of the award subject matter into your teams. But that process starts long before the judges visit.

Adding awards-winning goals into a business involves everyone from top to bottom and can be used to drive the business forward in a specific direction. It is a year-long process to embed the ideas and collect the evidence to support your award application. All with the added frisson of competition to drive you on to create a winning entry that shows real innovation and quantifiable business benefits in addition to ticking all the award criteria boxes. The really top award evaluations will assess the impact of the changes on all the key target audiences and it must prove to be beneficial to these audiences, and not just boost the business and produce a ROI (return on investment).

If you are a niche company, do search out the specialised awards for your area. They can be excellent if you are aiming at a highly-targeted group and will bring your business name to the attention of professional or trade organisations, relevant trade media, plus potential recruits and customers.

And good luck!

PHPR short-listed for a VIBES award

Awards are great for business. Many are free to enter and you get to call your business an award-winning enterprise for evermore. Entering is time-consuming, but the best offer expert judges' feedback, so that every entrant benefits.

We have won awards in the past, but I am particularly pleased to hear that PHPR is on the shortlist for the top Scottish environmental awards for business - VIBES. Are we the first Scottish PR agency to be shortlisted?

The VIBES application form process is designed to create a robust environmental policy, so being short-listed is really encouraging as we now know that we are on the right track.

Taking care of our environment is not just a PR exercise for us. We have reduced, re-used and recycled since 1986, so we must have spared a few trees by now. But we were short on measuring and documenting our evidence, as we found out by entering VIBES last year.

Like all the best awards, VIBES (it stands for Vision in Business for the Environment of Scotland) gives expert judge's feedback to every entrant. The idea of entering last year was to use the feedback to do better this year. It has worked.

The main focus is on providing supporting evidence and we addressed some of that in the application. We will be visited at our Edinburgh base and judged in September.

Fingers and toes crossed!