New Year Resolutions for all businesses in 2010 by Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre

New Year is traditionally when we resolve to stop doing the things that are ‘bad’ for us but then we lose motivation and slip back into our old ways.
2010 is destined to be a year of significant change for all businesses. Last year the credit crunch forced companies to make drastic, often painful decisions to stay in business. This year driven by politics, the environment and economics, businesses will have to change the way they deal with their waste, energy and transport use. Those that resolve to adapt now, taking responsibility for the environmental damage they cause, will be securing a sustainable and profitable future for their business.


The Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre has launched their New Year resolutions for all businesses to follow in 2010. These are some of the guiding principles that the social enterprise uses themselves, so they know these resolutions are achievable and at the Centre they have the expert knowledge, training courses and products to help people learn how to live, work and build sustainably.


Trudy Thompson the Founder of the Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre says “People need more than willpower to make their business more sustainable. They will succeed if they can obtain expert guidance, financial incentives and business growth opportunities to motivate them into action.


World leaders may have failed to make instant decisions at Copenhagen but don’t let this lull you into thinking it will take years before anything changes. People power is driving the green revolution forward at a rapid pace. Your customers will expect you to supply low carbon, sustainable products”.


Consumers react faster to change than governments, with an election looming their voting power will influence politicians to push their green credentials, they will be under pressure from people driven environmental campaigns like 10:10 or 350.org to deliver on promises to address climate change and reduce co2.


We all need to address the issues we are causing with carbon emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels. Businesses who avoid doing anything or use ‘green wash’ marketing to make it look like they are doing something are risking damaging their business for ever. Not just from the rising fuel prices, the increasing costs from running their business and the carbon tax they will have to pay. Consumers are more aware and concerned about climate change.


These resolutions can save you money, make your business more efficient as well as increase your sales. Best of all it can help you win respect from your customers and staff.”


For more information take a look at www.bricksandbread.com or call Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre on 01252 314060


1 Join the low carbon economy


Without doubt this must be the number one resolution for every business this year. You need to drastically reduce your carbon emissions. Take a walk around your premises, one of your first tasks will be to accurately identify your carbon emissions, make sure you record this value to assess how you are doing. Your energy use is a major area where you can reduce your co2, there are grants, loans or cost savings you can benefit from.


3 Learn new skills


Training to learn a new skill or update your knowledge will help your company grow, give you a competitive edge, save money on outsourced services and become more efficient or respond to change quicker, especially if you learn a sustainable ‘green’ skill to join the low carbon economy.


2 Create a sustainable supply chain


Buy from local independent suppliers, choose your products carefully for their environmental performance, watch out for products that are just green washed and don’t fool your customers about your green credentials.


4 Make your business marketing more efficient


Keep in touch with your customers by using online social networking sites like linkedin, facebook or twitter to promote your business. Its free, instant and used well it can really help find new contacts. Use a low carbon website hosting service and keep your website up to date.


5 Perfect your networking skills


Apart from having great customer service, your business contacts are the key to a successful business. Good contacts are easy to create by regularly attending networking events, but choose the events you go to wisely, go for ones with leading expert speakers who will teach you something useful or connect you with sustainable businesses.






6 Write a decent business plan


Before you borrow money write a great business plan, especially if you are looking to change direction and become a sustainable business. It will help you follow a clear path and if honestly written will show your strengths and weaknesses.


7 Look at your transport


Now is the time to make major changes to your transport use as the cost of motoring is going to seriously rise this year. There are tax incentives and financial benefits if you choose more efficient vehicles and money to be saved by reducing your fuel costs. Consider using more public transport, try walking or cycling it will make you fitter and save you money. Working from home, using video conferencing or just planning your transport use can make a huge difference to your efficiency and quality of life.


8 Inspire your employees


A team building event or a staff competition can do wonders to improve their motivation and morale, especially after the unsettling credit crunch. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to reward loyalty a gift voucher for a family day out or a box scheme of locally sourced food can be great incentives.


9 Waste must be reduced, reused or recycled


Reduce your waste, consider how it could be reused before recycling. Putting mixed rubbish in a bin and sending it to landfill is no longer a responsible business practise. Encourage your staff to recycle ink cartridges and mobile phones by joining a scheme that benefits a local charity. If you have organic waste it can be used to create energy or compost, paper can be shredded for animal bedding or packaging. If the product you sell creates waste for your customer to dispose of you need to make your packaging recyclable there are alternatives that don’t cost more and will help improve the image of your business – show your customers you care by using a printing company that can print on 100% recycled paper and uses vegetable inks.


10 Use plants to improve wellbeing and performance


The office environment can be vastly improved by adding a few plants, they will do more than brighten up the place, the health benefits are considerable, they will improve the air quality and reduce the impact of sick building syndrome. Consider creating a green roof on your office building as a leisure space for staff or just for wildlife, the benefits are considerable; from reducing your heating and air conditioning costs, to reducing flood water run off. If you have outside space why not get some seeds, compost and encourage everyone to get involved with growing some vegetables, you’ll be amazed how quickly even the most reluctant gardener becomes interested.


These are some ideas to inspire you, if you really want to make your business more sustainable at Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre we have created this social enterprise to help people find the realistic ways they can live, work and build sustainably. Our business collaborates with leading experts and sustainable companies to provide easy access to the independent advice, skills training and verified products that enable people to join the low carbon economy.


Find out more about us at www.bricksandbread.com or call us on 01252 314060


Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bricksandbread


To network with Trudy Thompson find her on Linkedin at http://uk.linkedin.com/in/trudythompson

Act now - start adapting to a low carbon economy today

October was an incredibly exciting and interesting month at Bricks and Bread, with more people visiting the centre in the last few weeks than in the five months we have been open. The phone has been ringing off the hook with enquiries. Emails are coming in every few minutes from across the world offering support and asking for our help. Our website, that I created myself because we didn’t have the budget or the time to wait for someone else to do it properly, is now consistently attracting a whopping 9,000 hits on average a day!

We held a very successful event to support 350.org campaign and the International Day of Climate Action, which saw over 5000 events occurring in 181 countries to highlight that 350 parts per million is the safe upper limit of carbon emissions in the atmosphere - whilst we are now at 390ppm. The number of local people who attended our event with their children and grandchildren was really heart-warming. It was a family fun day which attracted more media coverage than we have ever managed to obtain, from our local paper to even a radio station in South Africa was covering our event. 

Major organisations have contacted the Centre to ask us to work with them. I can’t believe how rapidly they have gone out of their way to align themselves with us, let alone offering us a considerable amount of sponsorship so we can achieve our goals of providing subsidised training and advice for local people.  The huge effort and long hours I have put into creating this business appear to be paying off. The odds have truly been against me, I have not been able to afford more than a handful of days off in the last year. I have completely stuck my neck on the line to create this business. My closest friends thought it wasn’t worth me taking the risk of going bankrupt if it went wrong.  I wish this is where my message ends as a good news story of a growing venture.

What was deeply troubling me and inspired me to create this centre is really worrying me now. At the beginning of this year it was obvious to me that this is a critical year for the future of our planet.  The warning signs have been around for years, rising fossil fuel prices combined with diminishing resources and increasing demand for oil, along with our global trade network is increasing greenhouse gas emissions like co2 and methane. Our credit culture, throwaway society was not just creating a ticking bomb under the economy. It was also accelerating climate change.

In December world leaders are meeting for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, if we are lucky they will make far reaching decisions that may reverse what has become a major threat to mankind and the environment. But be in no doubt that if they do create a treaty that really tackles climate change, this will have far reaching impacts on all our lives.  The polluter will be forced to pay - that means all of us, as we all have an environmental impact.  Whatever happens at Copenhagen it is still down to all of us to take immediate action and not just a handful of us. There are billions of people who don’t want to make changes to their lives. We may be lucky that the damage we have caused the environment may be reversible. I truly hope so.

There are millions of businesses who are only interested in profits; they ignore the consequences of marketing green wash. It is fairly simple to play with figures, turn statistics to your benefit, or offset carbon emissions. These businesses will not admit they haven’t reduced the environmental impacts from their business in case it damages consumer/shareholder opinions.

It has taken me seven years of determination to obtain my level of knowledge and another year of complete dedication to get this business off the ground. I know how incredibly difficult it is to make a business truly sustainable even if you start out that way and have very clear, transparent objectives. Once you work with other businesses and use other companies products it can quickly become an unsustainable business. In order to be a sustainable business, your supply chain needs to be supplied by sustainable businesses too.  This is why just a few weeks before Copenhagen we have been inundated with offers of support from large organisations, as they are not stupid they will need ethical sustainable businesses like us to help them look good and survive.

I have not had any funding, grants, financial support of any kind from anyone in public sector organisations who either ought to be supporting us, or who said months ago they wanted to support us, they have not done anything yet!  I may be on my way to being able to pay our bills and will make a profit in the next year that will benefit our local community. But in the meantime the majority of schools, small businesses and residents within 10 miles of the centre do not seem to realise how lucky they are to have a hub for expert advice here.

It is vitally important that they get in touch with us to obtain the advice, training, products and services we offer, as few people in our local area are self sufficient, they don’t know how to build eco homes or how to run a sustainable business.  Unless we can rapidly engage the vast majority of people in our local area to come into the centre for advice, training and products, then all my business will achieve is to make large corporates look and feel better.

It is unbelievably urgent that everyone who reads this makes the effort to get in touch with us, even if you think you already do enough to be sustainable, or don’t believe you can do anything to make a difference. Trust me it is!  Do something this week, don’t delay taking this action. This business is here to benefit you, our local economy, our community and most importantly for our environment.

This is not a sales technique, or a marketing ploy, this is a sincere message from a business woman who risked her own financial stability to set up a community interest company as a hub for experts, simply to help you and other local people learn how to live, work and build sustainably. Your response to this message is vital, within a very short time I can see Bricks and Bread becoming a crisis centre, sponsored by large corporates and helping the people who didn't think they needed to adapt to a low carbon economy!

Trudy Thompson

Founder

Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre CIC