Charmaine Morrell, Environmental Consultant from Groundwork West Midlands Environmental Services Team, was asked to speak at this prestigious early morning Event, in November 2010, for 180 people at the Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton. 

David Garbutt, Area Director from Lloyds TSB Commercial said:

"At our Sustainability & Olympic 2012 Event, Charmaine Morrell of Groundwork gave a superb presentation on reducing costs sustainably and improving environmental performance. By giving examples of how she had helped local SME's in our Community she brought to life how Groundwork can help our customers generate business value."

The focus of the Event was to help local businesses become more sustainable, and thereby more attractive when tendering for contracts, including Olympic contracts.  The thrust of Charmaine?s 30 minute talk was on how businesses could increase their resource efficiency, with practical ideas.  The sort of areas included: energy, waste and raw material efficiencies.  Each resource saving opportunity was accompanied with a local case study, that either Charmaine or the EBS Team had given to a local West Midlands company.  The majority of recommendations were practical solutions, which will help companies become more sustainable, for example:

• Installing power factor correction equipment.
• Fitting variable speed drives to existing motors.
• Repairing air leaks to compressed air systems.
• Improving thermostatic controls to heating systems.

Behavioural solutions were also identified, for example: environmental management systems.

After highlighting Feed-In-Tariff and the Renewable Heat Incentive legislation, Charmaine rounded off the talk by highlighting some of the resources that are out there for local companies, including:

• Manufacturing Advisory Service - help for manufacturing companies.
• Carbon Trust loans.
• Black Country Business Environment Association, providing free newsletters and events for members.
• Skills for Climate Change, providing funded environmental training opportunities.
• Business Link.

If you would like help with any of the areas mentioned in this article, please contact 0121 530 5510, where one of the team will be happy to help.

A '.pdf' copy of the slide show is available here.