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25 January 2010

Indirect benefits outweigh cost savings for BT by a long, long way

I was doing some background research on BT's sustainability activity for the Green Executive and the Service Network talk I'm giving in two week's time. Their sustainability report says they've saved £400m between 2005 and 2009 and supported bids worth a potential £1.9bn in 2009. Which means:

• direct cost savings: £100m per annum
• indirect business benefit: £1,900m per annum
= indirect benefits are worth 19 times as much as direct cost benefits

So, please, don't be taken in by by the old "go green and save money" line - BT could have lost out on direct economic costs and still made a handsome profit on their sustainability programme. The prize is much, much bigger than just a few bob's worth of energy savings. The best of the best have their sights set much, much higher. Have you?

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Posted by Gareth Kane no responses

22 July 2009

Still can't afford this Green Stuff?

I've just been interviewing Paula Widdowson, Director of CSR for Northern Foods for book#2. Their CSR efforts saved them £2m last year, and they expect £4m this year and £11m the year after. Less enlightened companies are still saying "we can't afford to do this in a recession!" How can they afford not to?

Great tip from Paula: Northern Foods colour code their machines with small stickers. Red means "leave this on", Amber says "If you think this should/could be switched off, then ask" and Green says "If this isn't doing anything, then switch it off". For one of their factories, this cost £22 to implement. Genius.

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