It is official - we're now in recession, so making cost savings a priority in any business is important. Luckily, there is a handy by product to many of these cost-cutting measures - they are eco-friendly.
As the Managing Director of Powwownow I am keen to promote cost-effective green policies in business as I think it will soon become part and parcel of how we do business on a daily basis.
At any one time there are 50,000 users of voice conferencing from within the SME community. This means all those business people are saving money for their companies by not travelling across the country to attend meetings. Significantly, this also means they are cutting down the carbon footprint of their company too.
There is no trick or gimmick to voice conferencing - it does what it says on the tin - businesses can save money (we offer conference calls at a price of 6.7p per minute) and save energy and we are finding there are an increasing number of businesses who want to do just that.
As well as offering voice conferencing, Powwownow also offers ‘Showtime' - an all new, free web conferencing service. The service allows users to share their desktop and present documents as well as chat with fellow conference callers as though they were sitting in the same room.
We see a huge diversity in the types of business selecting us to help them save money. Our customers include Friends of the Earth, Imperial College, Easyjet and Macdonald Hotels. These companies see improvements in efficiency and see clearly the savings they make each month - it has also given them the chance to become even more environmentally friendly.
There is a lot of advice out there to help businesses become eco-friendly - some of the best is from The Carbon Trust. They even offer loans to help businesses wanting to upgrade to more energy-efficient equipment. These loans are interest-free, unsecured and repayable over a period of up to four years. The maximum loan is now £200,000.
There are many smaller things you can do in an office which don't involve borrowing money and which can mean you send out an eco-friendly message to all your customers.
They range from simply adding an email signature which says, ‘Please consider the environment before printing this email' - to hiring hybrid cars and trying to light office space as naturally as possible.
Many involve just thinking differently about your everyday working life. For example, if you have to travel, rent a hybrid car instead of a diesel or petrol one.
If you have to use accommodation, choose places that are known for their environmental policies and programmes.
Also, you can send out an eco-friendly message when organizing business functions by using local produce where possible. This means what you eat and drink hasn't been transported thousands of miles across the world.Another idea is to reduce the temperature in your buildings by one degree, that way you can cut your heating bills by 10 per cent.
Make sure every computer has a small sign encouraging the user to switch equipment off when it is not in use and turn off lights, copiers, printers, vending machines or water coolers overnight. This means no equipment will be left on stand by - thereby wasting vast amounts of energy.
When setting up an office think about how workers can share printers, encourage the use of the internal fax machine on computers and maximise natural lighting by ensuring windows are clean and ledges are not cluttered. You can also consider fitting presence detectors in areas that are not frequently used. The light will operate when someone enters the area and automatically switch off when there is no further movement. Also make sure you are using energy saving light bulbs.
And, maybe most importantly, recycle everything you can: toner cartridges, waste paper, cardboard boxes and batteries - It doesn't cost a thing.
Andrew Pearce is joint CEO of Powwownow
Click here [1] for more information