Colchester Borough Council is offering businesses a way to boost their bank balance and green credentials at the same time.
With the help of Colchester 2020 the Council have won £50,000 funding through the Local Area Agreement Reward Grant and have developed a project to support local businesses to reduce their environmental impact by lowering their CO2 emissions and as a result make significant cost savings.
The project, developed with Groundwork UK, consists of two levels of free support for businesses:
The first is a Full Energy Review where a business environmental advisor will review then compile a report on a business’ energy use and recommend how they can save energy or reduce environmental impact. The advisor can then offer follow up support to help business’ implement the key actions.
The second is energy workshops which maybe more appropriate for smaller businesses that may not need a full review. The workshop will help give participants the skills to carry out their own energy reviews. Participants will also be given up follow up support to help them make efficiency improvements.
Councillor Lyn Barton, Portfolio holder for Sustainability said:
“The council is keen to support local businesses to become more energy efficient, not only to mitigate their impact on climate change but also to cut their costs significantly.
“34% of the Borough’s CO2 emissions come from businesses and the council wants to reduce this number by 9.8% by 2011. This initiative is another great way that we are trying to help make Colchester a cleaner and greener place to live, work and visit.”
Case studies of similar projects have shown that businesses can reduce their energy consumption by between 20% and 30% with little or no investment, creating significant financial savings. With more investment this saving can be increased to between 50% and 70%.
Colbea was the first organisation in Colchester to benefit from the project. Bob Baggalley, the Chief Executive of Colbea said:
"Colbea is very pleased to be the first Colchester business to take part in this exciting new Colchester Borough Council initiative because we have a commitment to carbon reduction and to becoming more energy efficient. We found the exercise interesting and rewarding, as it gave us real and useful ideas on ways to save energy and help us reduce our bills. We would recommend this initiative to all businesses in the Colchester area."
If a business would like to take part in this project they can contact Climate Change Officer Samantha Preston:
Samantha.preston@colchester.gov.uk or 01206 282707.
This press release was produced and used by kind permission of Colchester Borough Council.
