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What is in this issue
- Note from Jean
- Featured Article
- Enviro Action Activities
- Links to Articles
A Note from Jean
People have been asking me to tell them more about who I am and how I run my business. So here we are - I am actually including my business as one example in the featured article this week. And in one of the articles below, even chocolate is under threat!
Featured Article – Living within our environmental means
Our resources are finite and we need to recognise the signs of reaching our credit limit. We all understand what it means when our financial means are stretched to breaking point but having the environment stretched to breaking point is new and poorly understood.
This includes things like the drought. Lack of rain and more storms are consequences of climate change and we need to work out how to live within our environmental means.
Looking at the news from Beijing at present we can see an environment that has reached its credit limit and they are still growing their economy and their energy consumption but individually the people are nowhere near as wasteful as we are and they would love to copy our standard of living.
So how can we make best use of our resources without going all “alternative” and being uncomfortable in our lives or harming our business? This is going to vary for all of us because we all have different circumstances. I like to be warm, well fed and comfortable. I am quite happy to watch my 17 year old TV until I really need to replace it. Many others in the building I live in are not and I see several plasma boxes in the recycle bins in the basement every week.
I am not prepared to compromise on communication equipment because I need this to run my business effectively. We all have different priorities.
I changed from having a physical office with staff and infrastructure and now run a more environmentally friendly “virtual” office working from home. My colleagues and assistants also work from home and commute by phone, VOIP phone and email. They are based around Australia, in Canada and Romania. We reduce travel and all the associated carbon emissions. A lot of my clients are online which also reduces emissions. In fact I made the change to online training as a response to client requests to save time and travel costs.
This is the way many businesses are moving all around the world. One of my daughters is a project manager in a multinational merchant bank. She is based in Adelaide and project manages virtual teams in Sydney and India. Some days she works from the Adelaide office, some she works from home which gives her flexibility to cope with sick kids. It makes sense from a financial, human resource management and environmental view. This obviously does not work for many businesses. The Mayor of New York, suggested that they could reduce the rush hour gridlock by staggering business start and stop times - some longer days and some work from home days.
I have been reviewing what I do in-house as well and was thrilled to get my last power bill (green power) and discover that it has reduced by around ¼ simply by turning off the big laser fax/printer except when it is actually being used. I generally turn it on 5 days for around 7 hours. The faxes are delivered as pdf files to my computer by email so I can still receive them around the clock.
I bought an apartment in a recycled hospital and it is very well insulated. I have a 7 x 8m 2nd floor terrace outside with trees, fruit trees, and some vegetables in pots. I face north so I get the winter sun in to warm the place through the large windows and I don’t need to use the heater more than an hour at night and half hour in the morning. I built a verandah to shade the windows in summer so again I seldom use the air conditioner.
The other advantage of the apartment is that it is very close to centre of the city and has a bus stop at the door so I do not have to use the car much. I also walk and ride my bike locally which is good for my health.
In contrast Carbon Cops this weekend visited a family who released a huge 95 tons of CO2 annually. After 4 weeks of the Carbon Cops visiting, they were down to a rate of 48 tons. The residents made no changes to their house, just changed to shorter showers, less electronic toys and then all turned off when not in use, plus they changed their driving habits. They felt good about themselves as a result.
Think about what you can do at home and realise that you can make an even bigger difference in your business and save money at the same time. My book “Reduce your Carbon Footprint” will help give you more ideas and I also run “Reduce your Carbon Footprint” workshops in your office and elsewhere as well as the online group management system training and off-the-shelf training packages.
| An area of 36 football fields is being de-forested every hour – systematically destroying the earth’s best defence against global warming. This is the same as 8 million people flying around the world |
About Enviro Action
The feedback I get from my clients is that “greening” their business in a systematic way saves them money, it reduces staff turnover because staff feel involved in the business, it reduces pressure from regulators and environmental groups, and customers like to buy from an environmentally friendly business.
One of my clients, Peter Dunne a farmer from central Queensland put it beautifully recently when he said “The system did not add another layer of paper to my business because it was all reviewed. It was more like a good ‘desk tidy’ where everything worked better.”
You can find out more about how I help you by visiting www.enviroaction.com.au/online or you are welcome to book your 20 minute no obligation consultation by calling 1300 88 3646.
Here are the links to the latest articles on the Enviro Jean Blog
About half of all the wind turbines in the world, and a third of all solar PV cells are manufactured in Germany. Since 2000 solar technology has gone from a 450 million euro-per-year business to a 4.9 billion euro money machine in Germany.
The Germans still have their energy politics however. Read more..
The electricity industry has called on households to start cutting their power use now to get ready for emissions trading which is forecast to add just over $3 a week to household power bills when it starts in two years’ time.
It was sensible to start preparing for higher prices in advance, Read more..
ROOFTOP gardens, soil footpaths and mandatory parklands are among radical plans to prepare Melbourne for climate change. A key lobby group the Committee For Melbourne has drafted recommendations to retrofit city buildings and make the public transport system green, to prepare Melbourne for the threat of global warming. And the city’s stormwater drains, health system and public transport infrastructure... read more
This news truly grabbed my attention!
In an interview with CNN, John Mason, executive director and founder of the Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Council (NCRC) says, “I think that in 20 years chocolate will become so rare and so expensive that the average Joe just won’t be able to afford it,” Read more...
Some manufacturers and retailers are going one step further by designing a cyclical or “closed loop” process for their products. “Closed loop” recycling means that recycled content is used in products and then the goods are collected after use by the companies, recycled and then re-manufactured into new products. With the increasing price of plastic, a petroleum derivative, recycling plastic has the potential to be cost effective. Read more..
The biggest impact on sustainability comes from the actual design. The supply chain is important but the design, even more so. The German Environment Agency estimates that 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are determined during the design phase. Lighter products reduce the transportation burden and products with fewer materials in a simple design are easier to take apart for recycling. Designers can also cut out toxic substances, include features that cut energy use, and improve the durability of components to enhance a product’s lifespan. Read more..
Kindest regards
Jean Cannon
Helping business build effective management systems to save money and grow
It is easy to be green
Winner 2008 FarmBis Distance Learning/eLearning Award, 2007 South Australian Seafood Industry Training Award in recognition of training excellence and others
For more information or suggestions about how I can serve you better,
please contact me on jean@enviroaction.com.au.
Customer information is never supplied to any other list or provider. We retain your information only so we can serve you better and supply you with bonuses and additional information as it becomes available in the future. Your information is kept using our strict in-house confidentiality procedures.
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