Environment Capital

Peterborough Environment City Trust (PECT) – creator of the Green Wheel cycle network – has a simple aim: “to lead and support the city in creating the UK’s Environment Capital – an exemplar of how to deliver truly sustainable growth in order to improve the overall quality of life of its people, communities and environment”. As PECT prepares to celebrate its 20th birthday in 2013, Toby Venables talked to Marketing Manager Shelley Cash about how their ambitious aims are being achieved, and how businesses can actually SAVE money by going green.

HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP WHAT IT IS YOU DO?
We’re an environmental charity and we work with businesses, schools and the community, and our aim is to create a greener, cleaner, healthier Peterborough – creating the Environment Capital. We have a variety of projects and basically run them through funding that we get in, some last six months, some are for 20 years depending on the funding and the nature of the project.

HOW DO YOU GET INVOLVED WITH BUSINESSES?

There are two ways businesses can get involved with us: we can help them reduce their impact on the environment, giving them advice on energy use and their waste, and also save them money as well. Or, they can actually take part in a project. For example, they can get involved in projects like Forest for Peterborough, planting trees, getting their staff involved, or they can donate money to pay for trees.

IT MAY COME AS A SURPRISE TO MANY THAT BEING GREEN CAN SAVE THEM MONEY. IS IT A TOUGH JOB OVERCOMING PRECONCEPTIONS?

As a marketing manager for an environmental charity, that is my challenge. People think “I can’t afford to be green – everything sustainable is really expensive…” But you have to look at it in terms of the money people have. So we have a lot of people who are really passionate who will invest
in solar panelling, but for families that can’t afford that, it’s up to us to educate them on what they can do. Simple things, like collecting rainwater in a water butt, or recycling more. How we deal with different audiences is the key part, showing how little it can cost. And for businesses how
it can actually save them money. I think some businesses aren’t aware that they can save money.

WHAT LEVEL OF SAVING ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

We’ve saved businesses over a quarter of a million pounds over the last year. Mostly, it’s educating people on how they can save, and often it’s the simplest of things, like setting your printer for double-sided printing. We’ve done that for lots of offices, and they can’t believe how much money they’re saving. Also we’re trying to convince people not to print so much, because it’s so easy just to hit ‘print’. We’ve also saved over 533 tonnes of CO2 over the past year with Peterborough businesses.

WHAT ABOUT BUSINESSES THAT WANT TO TAKE THINGS TO THE NEXT LEVEL?

We’ve got a project called Investors in the Environment (iiE), which is an accreditation scheme. We go out and teach businesses how to bring their energy bills down and do audits and help them through a step-by-step process towards accreditation. There are three levels – Bronze, Silver and Green. It was aimed originally at small businesses  who don’t have a lot of money for that sort of thing, who can’t afford to do ISO or employ a consultant for £500 a day. Membership can start from £150 a year, depending on the business. We’ve also got over 750 businesses “pledging” with iiE, which means that they have said they want to do something to be greener.

DO YOU HAVE EXAMPLES OF COMPANIES YOU’VE HELPED?

Hercules Direct Marketing Ltd joined in March 2011. They’re at Green level now, and have reduced their electricity usage by 30%, gas by 40% and have had a 70% reduction of paper. Pretty impressive! IPM achieved Silver in May 2011 and are working towards Green. They have 16 members of staff, so are a good example of a smaller office in Peterborough, and they have saved £852.09 on electricity in the last seven months, with a 13% reduction in paper just by switching to double-sided print. We’ve got over 125 businesses that are members, and looking at a sample of members from the past year, we’ve calculated their average savings at 21% gas, 16% electricity, 22% on landfill waste and 29% paper consumption.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER BENEFITS TO IIE MEMBERSHIP?

With iiE accreditation you get a certificate and a logo that you can use on your branding. We also do a lot of networking which is very beneficial for businesses. We have at least eight events and seminars for members each year, and we have lots of different companies come in and talk about how they made positive changes – IKEA are very active in this area. We do push for members to share their knowledge. As a member you also get access to a range of resources and equipment, from Thermal Imaging Cameras to free telephone and email support – basically everything you need to green your company – plus promotion through our own media avenues.

HOW DO YOU MEASURE YOUR OWN SUCCESS?

We look at how many people we engage, and we do try to increase those targets every year. We’ve engaged over 35,000 members of the community in the past year, over 26,500 pupils in environmental education, and we’ve helped over 975 business – although the figures may be higher than that. Through our projects, companies can help tick their CSR box, too.