Going green with a little envy

The Go Green celebration organised by South London.biz and Merton Chamber of Commerce at Wimbledon Park Golf Club this morning was an opportunity to spread the word about how Invisible Ink has made strides to improve it’s carbon footprint.

I found it impossible not to be enthused by stories from the various speakers and in particular from local businesses who have achieved considerable financial savings at the same time as reducing their carbon footprints.

And on listening to their stories, I would admit to experiencing a little bit of envy, despite that fact that we too have also thought about our own business carbon footprint. Changes we have made include turning off computers and printers when not in use. We work with the ‘lights off’ during the summer and Autumn months. We also take advantage of working from home on a regular basis.

However, based in serviced offices, we do not see any benefit in lower electricity bills, changes in lighting etc. We have no control over the suppliers of these services, and on a month to month basis, if we have helped reduce the bills received by our landlord, then we see no change in the cost to our business. We have raised the issues of recycling, of energy efficiency and the like, and if they have any plans to improve things in these areas then they have made it a well kept secret. Not that this has stopped us from going green anyway. In fact we were the very first company to undertake the Go Green assessment back in April 2007.

But rather than shrug our shoulders and think, why should we bother, it has posed the question, if every business in our office block also engaged in a ‘greening process’ then would there be an effect on the costs of running the building and therefore ultimately to us? At the very least we would be contributing to an improvement in the wider environment.

With this in mind, our encouragement to fellow south west London businesses, is a 10% discount off our design services to any company who engages in the Go Green assessment, or a compatible scheme. Rather than offering a ‘discount’ just for the sake of it, we are offering it only to businesses who have demonstrated a degree of commitment to the environment.

A business of our size can only make a small difference, and on it’s own, you may think, so what? However, if 40 businesses also did this, then suddenly it begins to make sense. Imagine then, if it were 400 businesses?

Further information on our scheme can be found here.