Sustainability for business
Make sustainable business choices
Planning for long term sustainable development is good for business. This means considering the effect your business has on every part of the environment and society. Simply put your business should have minimal negative effect on the wider world.
Sustainable businesses manage resources efficiently and subsequently make better financial sense.
Significant financial and carbon savings can be made simply by good housekeeping by you and your employees. In some cases there may be some costs in changing the way your business operates but these should quickly be outweighed by savings from resource efficiencies, energy savings and new business opportunities.
AVDC’s Economic Development Strategy
In partnership with other local authorities in Bucks, AVDC supports the Corporate Environmental Advisory Centre (CEAC), which supports environmental management in small and medium sized businesses. The Centre:
- provides training, site visits and published guidance
- offers a free environmental status assessment for business to identify potential cost savings
- provides a one-stop shop of environmental advice and information for businesses
- is working to establish business recycling networks within the Vale
For further information on the CEAC visit www.ceac.co.uk
The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC)
The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) has now officially started, and is the UK's first mandatory carbon trading scheme. The initial phase of the CRC is compulsory for organisations that consumed over 6,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity (roughly equivalent to bills over £500,000), and had at least one half-hourly electricity meter (HHM) settled on the half-hourly market in 2008. Registration for the initial phase closed in September 2010.
The aim of the CRC is to reduce the level of carbon emissions currently produced by the larger 'low energy-intensive' organisations by approximately 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2020. As a Climate Change Bill commitment, the scheme is aiming for a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.
Currently Aylesbury Vale District Council is under the required threshold and is not part of the commitment but Buckinghamshire County Council and many other large Vale employers are included. Aylesbury Vale District Council Economic Development and Sustainability Team's are interested to talk to any local companies wishing to seriously engage in carbon reduction measures (AVDC has set an 22% carbon reduction target for its own estate but believes partnership will be the only way we can address carbon reductions at a local level, whilst developing local expertise and employment opportunities).