As climate change and security of supply concerns drive the carbon reduction agenda, the attention of businesses naturally focuses on the compliance and risk management requirements.
Yet the Age of Energy will also be a huge engine for growth and, while serious capital will be required to lay much of the new low-carbon infrastructure, there’s still lots of room for small and medium-sized companies to prosper.
Technology is a key example, with science expected to provide long-term solutions in alternative energy. But this is also an area where the ability to think differently can deliver solutions that increase efficiency and benefit the green effort at the same time as generating profits.
The best examples are those that solve problems that may seem ridiculous to the general public but have long been ingrained into conventional business practice.
In recycling, for instance, the holy grail is not simply finding an alternative use for plastics, glass or paper but recycling them back into their original states so they can be consumed again by the same users.
This is much harder than one might think. With food and drink containers, there are health and safety issues, whilst security and confidentiality concerns prevent many companies from entrusting their office paper to recyclers.
However, by thinking through a way of ringfencing such material and delivering it to and from a recycling plant complete with a precise audit trail, Banner Business Services has found a potential solution, which has been tested in a trial with HM Revenue & Customs.
Banner, part of Office2office, a London Stock Exchange-listed company based in Norwich, has developed a process for the secure collection and shredding of “end of life” office papers and its recycling into office copier paper made exclusively from the collected waste.
During the trial, its mobile crushing vehicles have been collecting paper waste from tax offices, shredding it on site and then securely shipping it to Hamburg, where the Steinbeis paper mill recycles it into A4 sheaves. These are then collected by Banner and delivered back to HM Revenue & Customs.
Richard Costin, Banner’s managing director, says: “In the UK, virgin pulp paper accounts for more than80pc of total office paper consumption and less than half of the remaining 20pc is made from post-consumer waste.
“As a result, we believe there will be a sufficient ongoing supply of ‘end of life’ office waste paper to capture and use as the base raw material for ongoing production of new 100pc recycled copier paper for many years.”
It’s good news for energy consumption, with Steinbeis calculating that recycling consumes 72pc less power, and 82pc less water and makes 46pc fewer emissions than manufacturing from virgin wood pulp.
It also saves money for Banner’s customers with David Thomas, commercial director for HM Revenues & Customs, stating that the trial produced a £1.2m-a-year cost saving as well as a 46pc reduction in carbon emissions.
“The proposal is that closed loop will be included in the tender for central government office supply services that will be issued in March,” he says.
An obvious problem is that there are no paper mills in the UK capable of doing the recycling but both Mr Costin and Mr Thomas believe this could change with the certainty of a central government procurement contract.
Another example of a smart solution to a perplexingly intractable problem has been provided by Robert Matthams, who found as he was concluding a business studies degree at Manchester University that 25pc of lorries run completely empty of cargo in the UK, while 50pc run only part-full. In addition, 15pc of vans run empty on British roads.
“That’s more than 112,000 lorries and 450,000 vans releasing a shocking and unnecessary 36m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – 7.2pc of the UK’s annual carbon footprint,” he says. “I realised just how big the issue was.”
Mr Matthams turned to the internet, utilising the information technology knowledge he had gained on his course to help build a computer programme capable of matching empty lorries with people wishing to transport goods in a way similar to eBay’s pairing of sellers of goods with potential buyers.
The result was Manchester-based Shiply.com. Users register, log in and post messages about items they want transported, stipulating the maximum they’re prepared to pay. Then freight members have the opportunity to bid for the work.
If more than one firm responds, they take part in a reverse auction, bidding each other down to the lowest price anyone is prepared to accept.
Anything that needs to be moved, from a small box to cars, boats or even entire house contents can be listed on the site for free and Mr Matthams says the service saves consumers up to 75pc of the normal costs of transporting such items.
Shiply.com has 115,000 customers, 7,000 registered transport companies and 3m website users and has saved almost 3m kg of carbon dioxide, equating to carbon emitted by nearly 5,000 flights from London to New York since its launch.
Shiply.com was one of the winners of the Shell Springboard competition in 2010, alongside transformers firm HiMag Solutions, flooring business Trendform, renewable electricity company Pulse Tidal, alternative cremation firm Cryomation, hybrid turbochargers business Aeristech, biofuels company Hardstaff Group, energy storage company Cress Energy Storage Systems and heat pumps firm Global Energy Systems & Technology.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Yet the Age of Energy will also be a huge engine for growth and, while serious capital will be required to lay much of the new low-carbon infrastructure, there’s still lots of room for small and medium-sized companies to prosper.
Technology is a key example, with science expected to provide long-term solutions in alternative energy. But this is also an area where the ability to think differently can deliver solutions that increase efficiency and benefit the green effort at the same time as generating profits.
The best examples are those that solve problems that may seem ridiculous to the general public but have long been ingrained into conventional business practice.
In recycling, for instance, the holy grail is not simply finding an alternative use for plastics, glass or paper but recycling them back into their original states so they can be consumed again by the same users.
This is much harder than one might think. With food and drink containers, there are health and safety issues, whilst security and confidentiality concerns prevent many companies from entrusting their office paper to recyclers.
However, by thinking through a way of ringfencing such material and delivering it to and from a recycling plant complete with a precise audit trail, Banner Business Services has found a potential solution, which has been tested in a trial with HM Revenue & Customs.
Banner, part of Office2office, a London Stock Exchange-listed company based in Norwich, has developed a process for the secure collection and shredding of “end of life” office papers and its recycling into office copier paper made exclusively from the collected waste.
During the trial, its mobile crushing vehicles have been collecting paper waste from tax offices, shredding it on site and then securely shipping it to Hamburg, where the Steinbeis paper mill recycles it into A4 sheaves. These are then collected by Banner and delivered back to HM Revenue & Customs.
Richard Costin, Banner’s managing director, says: “In the UK, virgin pulp paper accounts for more than
“As a result, we believe there will be a sufficient ongoing supply of ‘end of life’ office waste paper to capture and use as the base raw material for ongoing production of new 100pc recycled copier paper for many years.”
It’s good news for energy consumption, with Steinbeis calculating that recycling consumes 72pc less power, and 82pc less water and makes 46pc fewer emissions than manufacturing from virgin wood pulp.
It also saves money for Banner’s customers with David Thomas, commercial director for HM Revenues & Customs, stating that the trial produced a £1.2m-a-year cost saving as well as a 46pc reduction in carbon emissions.
“The proposal is that closed loop will be included in the tender for central government office supply services that will be issued in March,” he says.
An obvious problem is that there are no paper mills in the UK capable of doing the recycling but both Mr Costin and Mr Thomas believe this could change with the certainty of a central government procurement contract.
Another example of a smart solution to a perplexingly intractable problem has been provided by Robert Matthams, who found as he was concluding a business studies degree at Manchester University that 25pc of lorries run completely empty of cargo in the UK, while 50pc run only part-full. In addition, 15pc of vans run empty on British roads.
“That’s more than 112,000 lorries and 450,000 vans releasing a shocking and unnecessary 36m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – 7.2pc of the UK’s annual carbon footprint,” he says. “I realised just how big the issue was.”
Mr Matthams turned to the internet, utilising the information technology knowledge he had gained on his course to help build a computer programme capable of matching empty lorries with people wishing to transport goods in a way similar to eBay’s pairing of sellers of goods with potential buyers.
The result was Manchester-based Shiply.com. Users register, log in and post messages about items they want transported, stipulating the maximum they’re prepared to pay. Then freight members have the opportunity to bid for the work.
If more than one firm responds, they take part in a reverse auction, bidding each other down to the lowest price anyone is prepared to accept.
Anything that needs to be moved, from a small box to cars, boats or even entire house contents can be listed on the site for free and Mr Matthams says the service saves consumers up to 75pc of the normal costs of transporting such items.
Shiply.com has 115,000 customers, 7,000 registered transport companies and 3m website users and has saved almost 3m kg of carbon dioxide, equating to carbon emitted by nearly 5,000 flights from London to New York since its launch.
Shiply.com was one of the winners of the Shell Springboard competition in 2010, alongside transformers firm HiMag Solutions, flooring business Trendform, renewable electricity company Pulse Tidal, alternative cremation firm Cryomation, hybrid turbochargers business Aeristech, biofuels company Hardstaff Group, energy storage company Cress Energy Storage Systems and heat pumps firm Global Energy Systems & Technology.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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