I spent this morning at a Chamber of Commerce networking meeting. Each of the hundred or so attendees had a minute to give a Dragons' Den style pitch at the others. I love DD and wanted to give the whole elevator pitch thing a go, but it is a nightmare trying to sum up Terra Infirma's activities in a few sentences. For example, this week I've been:
- Indentifying opportunities to use 'waste' heat from a proposed coal fired power station;
- Developing a plan for a facilitated session for Local Authority waste officers to brainstorm new ideas for waste awareness;
- Looking for eco-design opportunities in the packaging of eco-friendly shampoos and shower gels.
How do you sum that up in a minute? OK, I said:
Business is coming under massive pressure to improve their environmental performance driven by legislation, increasing energy and waste costs, customer expectations and public pressure.
We've worked with everyone: multinational chemical companies, commercial businesses, construction companies, even an independent hairdressers, to integrate sustainability into their operations, products and services. We take a proactive approach which goes beyond compliance to reduce costs, exploit green market opportunities and improve public relations.
Not bad?
As with all these events, there were too many sellers, not enough buyers, and there wasn't enough time after the pitching to do some proper networking (ie talking to people), but I did make a couple of good contacts which could be useful. After all, networking is a long game.
