If you run a small or medium sized business, it may not have occurred to you that adopting good environmental practices can lead to reduced operating costs. The fact is though that by doing so, UK enterprises collectively saved £58m last year. If yours wasn't one of them, chances are that your understanding of environmental law isn't all it could be. Rather than handling waste inefficiently and incurring fines, taking a greener stance could save your business thousands annually.

A third of small businesses don't have environmental policies in place, according to the research by netregs.gov.uk, a free online Government service set up to help small businesses gain a better understanding of environmental law which in turn gives them an edge over their competition. When you consider the £2.4 million in fines paid last year by businesses that unwittingly broke environmental laws, it is clear just how helpful NetRegs could be. It seems that staying ahead in business and going to bed with a clear conscience needn't be mutually exclusive after all. To find out more, log on to our exclusive webchat with Richard Martin from NetRegs and Alexander Ehmann from the Institute of Directors.

For more information visit www.netregs.gov.uk

H: Host, Murray Norton
R: Richard Martin, NetRegs
A: Alexander Ehmann, Institute of Directors

H: Hello and welcome to the Business Show, I'm Murray Norton. Now then, if you run a small or medium sized business, it may not have occurred to you that by adopting good environmental practices you could see your operating costs significantly reduced. Yes you could actually save money!  You see I knew that would get your attention. In fact last year UK businesses alone saved a fabulous £58m by adopting greener practices. If yours wasn't one of them, well chances are that your understanding of environmental law isn't all that it could be. Well joining me today to talk about this is and Alexander Ehmann from the Institute of Directors and Richard Martin from NetRegs which is a partnership between organisations of the UK environment regulators. Gents, welcome to the show, thanks very much indeed for coming in.  Let's start off with a question that's already in, and you know Richard if I can start with you - last year businesses had to pay £2.4 million in fines due to flouting environmental laws, so with that being the case there's definitely a need for a little bit of education here, isn't there?

R: Certainly is. In most cases those fines were incurred by ignorance of the regulations, ignorance of what they should be complying with, by small businesses who perhaps had never had any acquaintance with a regulator, and the first thing they knew was they'd got something wrong, that they'd caused a pollution incident or something like that. So if they'd known beforehand what they were supposed to be complying with, they could have prepared themselves better

H: It's like there's a doll spear head really of win / win - first of all you can save yourself, if you get the information right and get some education within your business, you can save yourself getting fined and then you can save some money on top of that, so it's a bonus on top isn't it?

A: Yes I mean absolutely - I mean the vast majority of businesses out there, as Richard rightly pointed out, don't necessarily know what's effecting them and that's the reason they make the mistakes that you've mentioned, but you know secondly if they do things properly and they abide by the law and they look at some of the savings they can make on top, you know, it's a real sort of no-brainer in terms of efficiency and the money they can save. That's on top of the fact that you know there's some government advice out there that's free-of-charge which, you know, is certainly a saving in itself

H: We'll come on to some of the other good points and reasons why you should be looking at that Regs in just a second, now I've got a question in from Brian straightaway and I want to bring this up to you both. Brian said "I've run a business for the last 40 years and I find all the new health and green laws all very, very confusing." There are a lot of them out there, to be fair. Now why should we have to change the way we do business and why should Brian have to change the way he does?

A: I think key is the point I just made earlier. I mean yes there is a lot of regulation out there and the Institute of Directors does a lot of work across the piece on that, but when we're focusing on environmental regulations the main benefit here is that it's not just about - you know you need to comply so you don't get caught out, clearly that does have its role, but also the, you know there's real money to be saved here. Core efficiencies around your energy use, around your water use and around the way you dispose of waste, all those things you know just sometimes go by businesses on a day-to-day basis so you know getting a little smarter about those things does help

H: Isn't it the fact though, sorry I just want to say, isn't it the same as eating healthily?  We all know we should, but do we actually get round to it?

R: Yes

H: That's the problem with this isn't it really?

R: I think it is and we understand that small businesses are very, very busy, they're short of resource, they haven't got enough time to do everything they want to, they haven't got enough people to do all the tasks they'd like to do, so some priorities are higher than others, and it tends that the things that are at the top of their agenda are the ones that are around cash flow and things like that, environment, everybody wants to do the same thing, the vast majority of businesses want to do the right thing by the environment but they think it's going to be costly and very often they don't know where to start

H: It's a good point you say small and medium-sized businesses which is where we started off - that could be a good thing as well because usually the person making the decisions is the person that's going to have to carry it out

A: Yes absolutely. I mean the larger businesses on the whole find compliance of any sort of regulation more straightforward. They often have dedicated teams or individuals associated with those regulations. Smaller businesses, I mean many of the people watching now will be directors of businesses, thinking about you know a whole range of different issues, but I think the benefit is, as you rightly point out, is for those directors - when they understand the agenda and when they're doing it, every single aspect of their business is tightly meshed into that idea, and so they can really create some quite coherent strategies and ways of engaging around, you know the environmental agenda. Perhaps even more so than larger businesses are capable of

H: You were saying that time constraints are the biggest problem, everyone is so busy, we're all working longer hours, those running the businesses haven't got the time to do the paperwork that they've got at the moment alone, let alone find out anything else.  So how easy is NetRegs to use? I mean if people log onto it, what can they expect?

R: NetRegs was designed from the bottom up, to be comprehensible to the smallest of business. And until NetRegs appeared it was very difficult for them to find out what they had to be doing. It was difficult for them to get coherent advice. So the NetRegs site has been built by 3 environmental regulators in the UK, pooling their resources, bringing out something that is coherent, is backed by trade associations, we've worked with a lot of other organisations like trade associations. And we've gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that it's written in plain English. Even somebody who's never even looked at environmental legislation before can understand it, and therefore we're producing guidance which they can actually use

A: I think you know the Institute of Directors recognises this is one of the few government pieces of advice that really, really does actually do what it says on the tin. Too often the assumption is the business looking knows what it is they're looking for.  Now I think the advantage of NetRegs is it's really easy, you go in, you do have a look around and you're able to familiarise yourself with the environment as a whole, and then understand what's going to affect you. And critically I think what it doesn't do is act as some kind of lexicon or library of regulations, it just tells you what you have to do

H: Gets you the information you want. Now obviously businesses are different. There are businesses that deal in paperwork and work in an office environment. There are those who are out in the field or maybe in the construction industry so different information for different types of businesses, is that fair to say?

R: That's what we do. There are two ways of going into the guidance in NetRegs - one is sector advice, so by business sector, if you're in the construction industry you go into the construction bit. If you're in agriculture you go into agriculture, if you're in manufacturing we've got a whole range of manufacturing industries, so you can go in that way and you'll find that the guidance is speaking your kind of language for your business

H: Are we talking about things such as if you were in the food industry for instance - waste disposal, that would be something that's very important wouldn't it?

R: Absolutely yes we do talk about that in both food and drink manufacturing, and for the farmers, you might have a farm shop on your farm so you're dealing with animal wastes and all that kind of thing. All of the separate waste streams, all of these separate problems are discussed within that sector guidance

H: And presumably Alexander, I mean you're representing the Institute of Directors - you've had a look at this, you've looked through this NetRegs site - this is user-friendly for your membership?

A: Absolutely, I mean you know we like a lot of other business organisations offer a lot of information and advice directly to our members, but I think the key thing that we'd say about this, unlike a lot of other offerings is, you know, go and try it - it's free, it doesn't cost you anything to do it. What we found on the whole, there's a - you know - key collaborator in this, it's very, very good advice on the whole, and if you're starting off and you just want to understand what it is that's going to affect you, for us there's not much of a better place to start

H: Alright we've got a question in from Sara who says "I run an e-based company.  What simple steps can I take" - we're getting down to the nitty gritty here - "what simple steps can I take in my office to ensure I'm compliant with legislation?" So any practical hints here?

A: Well I think the straightforward answer is go to NetRegs, I mean I think that's a great starting place, and I - I wouldn't want to venture to suggest all the things that she could do, but you know there are energy-efficient measures she can take and also you know in terms of consumption of peripheral equipment like paper and ink. There are a number of things you can do and I think recommendations on the NetRegs website about those types of efficiencies

R: Yes and such a diversity of office businesses, but what we've done is we've created a sector which we've called "office businesses" and all office-based businesses will find guidance there on particularly resource efficiency, how to cut down the electricity you're using, like don't leave all the lights blazing at the end of the day

H: Sure

R: And don't leave your loos flushing all night, simple things like that

H: See if you can try and print on both sides of your paper, or whatever it might be

R: Absolutely

A: Exactly

R: Printing on both sides of the paper, segregating your waste so you're not throwing away your food wastes together with your paper and things like that

A: And indeed I mean to sort of top-up on that, one of the things businesses are really engaged and might want to go on to do is to look at how others in the sort of value chain are also used, are customers printing off too much when it comes to e-business, are they printing off just enough - you know it really kind of passed that message on down to the customer

H: These seem very practical and very obvious bits of advice, and it's good to be talking about these, but Laura sent in a question - thank you Laura - Laura says "I'm worried about the cost of implementing environmental policies in my organisation - how much money do I need to spend to become more efficient?" Now you know the information you're giving is free, but somewhere down the line someone's going to maybe have to spend a bit of time and / or money putting this into place

A: Yes I mean as I was saying, you know 90% of cases, starting with the basics, isn't going to cost you anything, and actually the savings should just come about from straightforward measures of making sure you're more efficient, you're doing things in the best possible way. There may be cases when you know some expenditure could be necessary in order to gain sort of mid to long term efficiencies, but the truth of the matter is, and I think very much the NetRegs ideology and certainly from the point of view of the Institute of Directors, you know this is about efficiencies, and what we're not looking to do is incumbent businesses with extra cost, we want to say to businesses you know you can comply and you can save money, and you can do that in a straightforward and easy way

R: Some of the measures though do involve cost, for instance if you've got a chemical storage or a fuel stowage, then you might need to put a bund around it, now that's going to cost you a few thousand quid, but you can see that as insurance because if you get a leak in your oil tank for instance, and that runs into a water course, that's going to cost you an awful lot more than a couple of thousand quid

H: So the investment's going to save you money on the fines obviously

R: Exactly

H: In fact here, Grey has just come in with this one - "what's the biggest single cost incurred by small businesses who -

R: I think its fines isn't it?

A: Yes

R: And that's what we want to save people from running up, because in most cases they're avoidable, we - by following the advice and guidance on the NetRegs site, they can avoid most of these fines

A: And indeed in some cases though, you know it may not be all but in some cases businesses will be able to look at this information and guidance and see actually maybe I'm doing a little too much, maybe I'm doing this in an overly prescriptive way, or not the best possible way, and so there are savings to be made from looking at this and understanding what's actually required

H: And as we pointed out right at the very beginning, you're talking about something - this is free information, free guidance, that's just there for you, and it's not a one-off. As I understand it this is updated quite often

R: It's updated on an almost daily basis. We're either updating the guidance on there or we're - we've decided we can present something a little bit more clearly. It's available 24/7 being a website, but that means it's available to us too, so we can update it constantly

H:  And presumably things are developing anyway, people are coming up with better ideas and better ways of -

R: Indeed

H: Going about things that you think that's a good idea we should put that in

R: Indeed and there are other sources of guidance out there which we link to because we link to guidance wherever it's best provided so we link to the Defra website to Health and Safety website to all different kinds, and we will change those as required

H: Right.  Well there's questions still coming in and we are more than halfway through, so if you have got a question then get it through to us as quickly as you possibly can. Such as this one from Rachel - "do a company's environmental policies have to be approved by anyone before they can be implemented?"  That's a good question

A: Well I - I mean from the Institute's point of view the key is getting the buy-in from obviously the leadership of the organisation. But in terms of recognition on a governmental level, that's not - you know that's not necessarily a requirement here. What we're saying is that the outcomes are the important factor here. We really need to see businesses doing as much as they possibly can on the environmental agenda, saving themselves money, so in answer to that I think the key thing is as long as there's buy-in at the very highest levels of the organisation, that's enough

R: Yes.  Environmental policies are a very good way of just laying out your thoughts. Thinking ok what are we going to do? We're going to minimise the amount of waste we produce, we're going to be sensible about our use of resources, and it just lays out a few thoughts like that, and the great thing about ideas, then you can pass that down for business and everybody starts to take ownership, they begin to think oh yes, I can do some of that and I can do that - and everybody gets involved

H: And let's be honest here, people are in business so if you're a business that's environmentally sound and following good environmental policies and practices throughout the company, that's almost a badge of honour isn't it -

A: It is

H: And you can then sell on -

A: Yes.  I mean the key thing is as Richard rightly said, this doesn't have to be some sort of war and peace lexicon you know, it doesn't have to cover every eventuality, just start small, recognise what you're doing already, what you can do better, build on that and as you rightly pointed out, businesses that have good environmental credentials have a massive selling point to their customers, you know and increasing - in a world where this environmental agenda is all the more important to the end consumer, this can make the difference as to whether or not you make the sale

H: People are voting with their feet on green issues aren't they? 

A: Absolutely

R: They are

H: I mean we've seen it in the banking industries haven't we?

A: Absolutely right

R: We've been doing surveys every two years for the past four years and finding each time that - past 6 years actually - finding each time that the interest by customers of how green the businesses they're dealing with are behaving, it is increasing all the time, so they're getting more and more interested in this, especially in some sectors such as the food and drink sector and the retail sector, that really counts there. Why not get an edge over your competitors?

H: Ok well questions still coming in. Jeff says "My Company does not appear to have a policy on anything that will benefit the environment, which is a shame. Are there any steps that I can take as an employee to help?" So this is not someone at the top but someone further down the chain, if I may respectfully say that, Jeff. What in terms can he do?

A: Well I think it is great news that he is picking this up himself. The truth of the matter is I suspect in his business that there are things that are being done. Perhaps they haven't been noted down or are that visible. So the first thing to do is to almost recognise what those things are. The second thing is to make the case to the director levels or the management levels of his organisation for maybe improving those. A strong case for those is something we have pointed out earlier which is the massive cost savings that can be delivered. I would go at from the dual pronged approach, that this is the right thing to do for the environment and in terms of our recognition elsewhere, but secondly that there are some potential savings of money.

H: The savings is where we came in and started off. It is really important as it will make bosses of companies, particularly in some leaner months, will make them sit up and go hang on we can do a cost saving at the same time here. This is good news all sides.

R: It jolly well should do. There are an awful lot of costs that businesses can't control. Input costs, they are saddled with the costs of raw materials but resource efficiency is one area where they can control the amount they are spending. So why not do it?

H: There's lots and lots that people can talk about here concerning the environment and the good thing is that people are talking. I was just thinking that 20 - 25 years ago people wouldn't have been having this conversation would we?

A: No quite probably not. I think the conversation is much the richer for the benefit of this environmental agenda. As we are talking about here we are not talking about something where environmental gains or climate change gains run contrary to business interests. They are absolutely interlinked when you are talking about issues of efficiency and I think that has got to be for the positive of UK plc and the general public.

R: Good environmental practice is good business practice.

H: I was looking at the NetRegs site, which is a pretty impressive site because it does go off in so many different directions depending on where your interest lies and where your business happens to be. There is a way of getting email updates isn't there?

R: Yes you don't have to sign up, you don't have to register to use the NetRegs site but if you want to we offer as an additional service registration for e-alerts. E-alerts are 2 monthly emails which will tell you about changes to the legislation updates to the legislation, updates to the guidance on the website in the area that you are interested in. So it will keep you updated it will advise you if there is some new guidance there that you need to be paying attention to and we are adding to and updating the sit all the time. It is well worth signing up to these and they are proving very popular we have got about 700 people signing up each month.

A: I should say they are free as well.

H: Free, we keep mentioning this word free. This is positive Government action.

A: That is really why the IOD are so positive about this because it really is something that isn't just a bundled information service and it is there and you sort of pick through it to find out what is right for you. This is a free service but it is tailored and it does offer good guidance. The majority of businesses that use it find it very very beneficial. So we are keen to make sure that when something free and its good, then businesses go out there and get hold of it.

H: And if it is going to save you money?

A: Yeah absolutely.

H: Well let's hope that if we are talking about this in a couple of years time. The £58million that was saved by business last year from going greener is going to be even more next time round. Where can people get information we talked about NetRegs what is the exact site?

R: Ok the site actually is if you type NetRegs into Google or go to www.netregs.gov.uk it is all there.

H: You find it all from there.

R: Also it is all free.

H: Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Don't forget if you want to look at it again it is www.netregs.gov.uk. I have got that right?

R: You have indeed.

H: So go and have a look at that site and good luck with it. I hope serves you as well as it has many other people in the past. Thank you very much indeed for joining us and we will see you again next time.

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