In stating the business case for why nature matters, the Ecosystem Markets Task Force‘s final report reaffirms that business is often unaware of its true reliance on nature. Natural systems provide us with a wide range of ecosystem services, including food, shelter, water, energy, health and air and protection from costly floods. In many cases, nature’s resources and services can provide all these dividends indefinitely, provided we look after them.

The report makes practical recommendations for both Government and business where interventions would assist in the creation and development of new markets, enhancing opportunities for growth that also benefit the environment. The overall context for these suggestions is described as the possible emergence of “a new economy that fully integrates the real value of nature”.

The emergence of a new economy

The Ecosystem Markets Task Force argues that a new approach to business and nature is needed, integrating the real value of nature into business thinking to maximise opportunities and manage future risks.

Some businesses, both large and small, are already pioneering a new way of looking at nature. These companies recognise that nature is a provider of vital resources and services, and that its value needs to be accounted for in both their day to day operations, as well as in investment decisions. They have seen how the traditional linear model of business and consumption – “take, make, discard” – degrades the essential services provided by nature, including its ability to deliver pest control, carbon capture, water replenishment, pollination, resource renewal and reduced flood risk. The linear model also continues to degrade biodiversity.

The report suggests that its overall context is the real possibility of the emergence of a new economy that fully integrates the real value of nature. The far-reaching implications for this include:

• Business needs to factor the real value of nature into its thinking now
• Business models will have to change as pressures on nature mount, and society and governments react
• A whole new set of business models will evolve based on the Circular Economy approach
• We will need new measures and standards to help reinforce these changes
• Regulators and government should support market mechanisms to help accelerate this trend
• Building on its leading academic position, UK has a new knowledge economy opportunity in this field

Recommendations

The report highlights five priority recommendations relating to opportunities that deliver substantial benefits for both nature and business:

• Biodiversity Offsetting: securing net gain for nature from planning and development
• Closing the loop: anaerobic digestion and bioenergy on farms
• Local woodfuel supply chains: active sustainable management supporting local economies
• Nature-based certification and labelling: connecting consumers with nature
• Water cycle catchment management: integrating nature into water, waste water and flood management

For each recommendation the report highlights the size of the opportunity, both in terms of its economic value and its potential benefits to nature.

In arriving at these recommendations the Task Force has been looking for priorities that will deliver both opportunities to business and real gains to nature. As part of this process, a significant evidence base has been generated over the last year which has helped to inform Task Force thinking, including wide-ranging analysis of all the opportunity areas identified.

Government response and next steps

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson welcomed the report’s findings on market opportunities to protect and improve the natural environment:

“This report shows that it is possible to boost the economy while at the same time we improve the environment.

“It’s fantastic to have these highly respected business leaders come up with so many potential opportunities for businesses. This independent report outlines ideas at the cutting edge of new markets which value and protect our natural environment.

“It adds new ideas and thinking in many areas that we’re already enthusiastically pursuing: such as biodiversity offsetting, anaerobic digestion and imaginative water management. We’ll be looking at all the recommendations and responding formally in the Summer.”

The Government will issue its official response to the Task Force’s report later this year. In the meantime Task Force members will continue to work with business leaders and organisations such as CBI, BITC and Cambridge Natural Capital Leaders Platform to get nature firmly onto business agendas. The Task Force would like to reconvene in one year’s time for a discussion with Government and other business leaders to assess progress since the Task Force’s report, and possible ways forward.

Further reading

• Realising nature’s value: full Ecosystem Markets Task Force final report available to download
• evidence base: evidence gathered by the Ecosystem Markets Task Force

You may also be interested in...

• Can payment for ecosystem services help safeguard the environment?
• UK National Ecosystem Assessment: the next phase

In this round-up:

• Sustainable Consumption in the UK: a selection of case studies (IPPR report)
• Climate change and energy security: Assessing the impact of information and its delivery on attitudes and behaviour (UK Energy Research Centre report)
• Enterprising Communities: Grassroots Sustainability Innovations (new book)
• Trade Unions in the Green Economy – Working for the Environment (new book)

Read about more recent publications and research in the latest SDRN bulletin…

Sustainable Consumption in the UK: a selection of case studies

This report presents case studies of best practice in achieving sustainable consumption in the UK. These case studies exemplify ways in which people can be helped, encouraged or compelled to live more sustainably, either directly or indirectly.

The first set of four case studies relate to initiatives led by, or involving, government to restrict or inform consumers’ product choice around a particular class of product. The second set of case studies (including Love Food Hate Waste) focuses on the role of large-scale public campaigns to raise awareness of sustainable livelihood issues. The third set of case studies (including Defra’s Pro-Environmental Behaviours Framework; and the Transitions Networks) relate to capacity-building initiatives; and the final case studies show how two different actors are leading sustainable consumption initiatives in the UK.

More from IPPR…

Climate change and energy security: Assessing the impact of information and its delivery on attitudes and behaviour

In a new report from Glasgow University, based on a series of focus groups with members of the UK public, researchers led by Prof. Greg Philo studied the impact of media coverage on public attitudes towards climate change and energy security.

The core of this research project was to analyse the role of the media, which has been said by the Chair of the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to have played a central role in spreading awareness of climate change. The project’s focus on public trust in different bodies in light of the increasingly diverse range of views on climate change within the media offers an insight into the impact of different actors and the message that they are portraying. The report found that there is widespread public confusion over climate change which reflects the journalistic construction of the subject as one of uncertainty. Most people have only a vague understanding of the science, and believe it is inconsistent anyway. It also found that People do not trust politicians, and as these are some of the voices they hear most frequently on the subject, that has led to further disengagement.

More from UKERC…

Enterprising Communities: Grassroots Sustainability Innovations

This book, edited by Prof Anna Davies, provides an internationally grounded and critical review of grassroots sustainability enterprises, specifically focusing on the processes that lead to their formation, the governing context that shapes their evolution, the benefits they create and the challenges that they face in different contexts.

This is the first internationally focused study of grassroots sustainability enterprises that covers such a range of environmental sectors. For the first time grassroots sustainability enterprises and their actions and impact receive comprehensive academic analysis from the perspective of their contribution towards more resilient development. The book begins by defining the term and placing it in context, looking at contemporary agendas in sustainability innovation and enterprise, and sustainability impacts and grassroots enterprises. It then examines a variety of grassroots sustainability enterprises such as low-impact housing in the UK, eco-villages in Ireland, community gardening in Germany and turtle conservation in Costa Rica. It concludes by looking ahead to the future at governing frameworks for grassroots sustainability enterprises and smart green clean-tech economy.

More from Emerald…

Trade Unions in the Green Economy – Working for the Environment

Combating climate change will increasingly impact on production industries and the workers they employ as production changes and consumption is targeted. Yet research has largely ignored labour and its responses.

This book brings together sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, historians, economists, and representatives from international and local unions based in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Together they open up a new area of research: Environmental Labour Studies. The authors (Nora Räthzel and David Uzzell) ask what kind of environmental policies are unions in different countries and sectors developing. How do they aim to reconcile the protection of jobs with the protection of the environment? What are the forms of cooperation developing between trade unions and environmental movements, especially the so-called Red-Green alliances? Under what conditions are unions striving to create climate change policies that transcend the economic system?

More from Routledge…

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• Publications round-up: People and the planet, savings and tax, business value, international climate goals

In an oddly moralising way, many people seem to feel that something that does good can’t also bring economic benefits.

But it does. At Green Alliance we have conducted an extensive analysis of the data surrounding the green economy. According to government data (pdf), last year we exported £121 million more green goods and services to Germany than we imported from them, as well as £183 million more to India and £330 million more to China. We now export more green products and services to our competitors than we import from them, and we have become the green financing capital of the world.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills tots up almost twice as many low carbon and environmental jobs – just under a million – than we have in motor trades.

Benefitting from the Green Economy – now

We are often told of the benefits that come from creating a greener economy and the advantage that will come from being a first mover. It is now clear that we don’t need to wait for these benefits. The UK has moved and we are seeing the advantage.

Our low carbon and environmental sector has shown that it’s not just for the good times, but that it has continued to grow steadily even whilst broader economic activity slows.

Market incentives and investor confidence

This is the outcome of setting ambitious environmental targets and creating long term market incentives for green goods and services. It has given the private sector confidence to invest billions of pounds in these markets.

In contrast, the UK’s high carbon infrastructure projects now have much lower leverage on private capital and are being propped up by greater proportions of public spending. According to the Treasury, in this financial year alone 88% of our top 20 infrastructure projects are low carbon, and are worth £23 billion, compared to just £3.1 billion for high carbon projects. Some 63% of this represents entirely private sector money. If you include what Treasury defines as public/private then the figure leaps to 94%. By contrast, our high-carbon spend for this year was 61% dependant on the public purse.

A UK success story

Quietly and without fanfare, green business has become a UK success story, at home and abroad. This success should be celebrated. With greater public recognition and stronger confidence green businesses can help secure a faster and more resilient economic recovery.

However, some still feel that we should not continue to promote this kind of economy and would prefer to incentivise a reliance on fossil fuels. Even the most optimistic commentators acknowledge that a reliance on gas will leave us dependent on imports in a seller’s market. In fact, the Office for National Statistics sees this as key to why we’re still doing so badly.

Green Alliance argues that we can’t, as a nation, afford such a compromised infrastructure strategy, the equivalent of Disraeli ripping out train tracks because they threaten canals. We should follow what we need, not what we needed, or we risk condemning this country to a policy of “Who needs the future when we have had the past?”

Further reading

• Green economy: a UK success story: Green Alliance report

Water for Business

WBCSD and IUCN have released a new version of their online guide to help businesses manage water more sustainably by providing an overview of water tools and initiatives which they can use or engage with. More from WBCSD…

Just Good Business

A new online toolkit aims to help build secure, profitable and sustainable enterprises, providing inspiration from other business leaders, advice and resources. The toolkit also provides a process to help build sustainability into business strategies and plans. More from ICAEW…

New forum to tackle environmental ‘footprint’ of every-day goods

The Product Sustainability Forum (PSF) brings together more than 80 organisations to take the lead on addressing environmental and sustainability issues that arise from making and selling products. Greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, water use, reliance on raw materials, product-related waste and packaging will all come under the spotlight. More from WRAP…

The Colour of Growth: Maximising the Potential of Green Business

Launching a new CBI report, The Colour of Growth: Maximising the Potential of Green Business, John Cridland, the CBI Director-General says that green or growth is a ‘false choice’. More from CBI…

New £16 million fund for entrepreneurs to develop new low carbon innovations

The first phase of the Entrepreneurs Fund, part of a £35 million fund announced earlier this year, is now open to applications. Up to £10 million is available to support energy efficiency technologies such as building control systems, advanced lighting systems, and space heating and cooling technologies. There is also up to £6 million available for power generation and energy storage technologies including fuel cells, biomass boilers and heat pumps. More from DECC…

Business Commitment to the Environment 2012 award winners

At the BCE Awards ceremony earlier in the summer, 15 companies were honoured for their environmental excellence, innovation and leadership. More from BCE…

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The Environmental Audit Committee has published the report on its Green Economy inquiry.

With current patterns of growth and development widely recognised as environmentally unsustainable, much focus has been placed on making the transition to a green economy, one that is resource-efficient and low-carbon, in order to address this challenge and protect planet from global environmental risks such as climate change and biodiversity loss, allow UK businesses to capitalise in growing global low-carbon and environmental innovation sectors,  and ensure resilience to resource and energy scarcity.

The Government has set out a timeline of green economy policies in Enabling the Transition to a Green Economy.  This document is intended to provide the clarity and certainty to the business community to innovate, invest and grow in a sustainable way.

International efforts on this agenda will be taken forward at the UN Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in June, where world leaders will come together to set out a clear vision of the green economy and agree a framework for action. The Committee argues that for the Government to be a credible voice at the summit, it must ensure that it has put in place a strong domestic policy framework to drive the transition to a green economy in the UK.

The Committee’s recommendations

Recognising the important role of businesses in making the transition to a green economy, the Committee expressed concerns that current action is insufficient to generate the necessary innovation and adoption of “green” technologies and practices.

“Placing no new requirements on business, the Government’s market-led approach is too focused on voluntary action. Relying on consumer demand to stimulate the green economy will not work. The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that there are clear risks from such a market-based approach, particularly when markets do not reflect the value of nature.”

The report argues that the Government needs to take the longer-term view. The whole economy needs to be green and traditional sectors of the economy will need to be transformed. To achieve this, the Committee recommends that the Government’s overall strategy is improved by:

• Revising its definition of a green economy to include all three pillars of sustainable development, including social considerations, well-being, and environmental limits.
• Creating a dedicated unit to examine the relationship between growth, prosperity and quality of life. A greater understanding is needed of how best to generate economic activity and jobs, while at the same time promoting sustainability and living within environmental limits.
• Setting out a clear trajectory to a green economy with targets, and action required from business in key areas such as resource efficiency, emissions and waste reduction. Transparent reporting arrangements will be integral.
• Agreeing a basket of indicators and targets against which regular reporting should be completed and the success of the Government’s approach gauged.

The report further urges the Government to:

• Develop minimum sustainability standards with stakeholders and businesses
• Set out how data on natural capital in the National Accounts will be used
• Develop targets for improving the state of the environment, similar to the ‘fiscal mandate’ for the public finances, and establish transparent reporting against such targets
• Use the Natural Capital Committee’s work on a ‘natural asset stock check’ as one of the basket of indicators used to measure the green economy

The Government will be responding to the report in due course.

Further reading

• Green Economy: full details of Environmental Audit Committee inquiry and report
• Green economy, green business: Defra’s work to support a strong and sustainable green economy

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• The view from the Environmental Audit Committee

Ecosystems Knowledge Network

The Ecosystems Knowledge Network is a new resource for anyone wanting to share knowledge or learn about the practical benefits of an ecosystems approach. It draws together experience from the UK and elsewhere to assist organisations to understand how an ecosystems approach can help us build sustainable communities. Visit the Ecosystems Knowledge Network…

Sustainable health and social care: a briefing for commissioners and health and wellbeing boards

The Social Care Institute for Excellence has published a summary guide for commissioners and health and wellbeing board members, setting out the key policy and operational drivers for a sustainable development approach to health and social care design and delivery. This includes specific detail regarding climate change and other environmental issues, but also covers social and economic sustainability. Short case studies of good practice at a local level illustrate the gains for health, efficiency, risk management, reputation and legislative compliance. More from SCIE…

How local authorities can reduce emissions and manage climate risks

A new report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) emphasises the crucial role councils have in helping the UK meet its carbon targets and preparing for the impacts of climate change. There is currently no requirement for local authorities to take action on climate change, presenting a risk that may will not develop and implement sufficiently ambitious low-carbon plans. The report outlines specific opportunities for reducing emissions and highlights good practice examples from a number of local authorities. The Committee recommends that a statutory duty and/or additional funding is needed to ensure local authorities have stronger incentives to act. More from CCC…

Survey of green growth / environmental sustainability accounting and indicators

DFID has published a technical paper on its survey of the major green growth frameworks and indicators to improve understanding of their function, pros, cons and the links between them. More from DFID and download paper…

See also our recent comment piece Rio+20: a development economist’s perspective by DFID senior economist Hannah Ryder.

Summit for Sustainability in Africa agrees support for green economies and valuing natural capital in national accounting

A two-day summit for sustainability in Africa, the first of its kind on the continent, concluded with endorsement of the Gaborone Declaration by ten African countries and public and private sector partners from within and outside Africa. The Declaration comprises a set of principles and development goals that move the value of natural capital from the periphery to the center of development planning. The summit also agreed a new roadmap for green economies. More from Conservation International…

EU Green Week: Every Drop Counts

The 12th European Green Week conference, the biggest annual conference on European environment policy, took place from 22 to 25 May 2012 in Brussels, focusing on water. More about the conference…

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In the late summer of 2011 Mark Prisk, Minister for Business and Enterprise, asked Dan Labbad, Chief Executive of Lend Lease EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) if he would consider joining him as co-chair of the new Green Construction Board. The board was being created to take forward the Low Carbon Construction Action Plan, published in response to Paul Morrell’s excellent Innovation and Growth Team report. Dan accepted.

Mark Prisk had been greatly impressed by the way the Innovation and Growth Team had brought business thinking into the heart of Whitehall. He wanted to retain that capability and take it beyond the point of making recommendations through to the delivery of actions. His focus – on the business opportunities from the transition to a greener economy – was one that Dan Labbad fully supports.

The proposition was simply that Dan would bring senior business people to the table, and Mark would bring senior Government people along. The board is comprised of a broad cross-section of construction, property and infrastructure people, including small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The Government is represented by Defra, BIS, DCLG, DECC, Cabinet Office and HM Treasury – Infrastructure UK. The shared ambition is to create a close and effective collaboration between industry and Government to ensure that business opportunities remain sharply in focus.

What has the Green Construction Board been doing?

Since the board’s first meeting at the end of October seven working groups, populated largely by industry volunteers, have been set up to take forward a broad range of issues. The working groups are keen to work with what is already there and not to duplicate existing work.

The board has published an early draft of a routemap which starts to set out how the construction, property and infrastructure industry will play a full role in ensuring the UK Government meets its 2050 Climate Change Act targets. That work is not complete – it never can be – but it starts to provide a much clearer basis on which people can challenge thinking within their own businesses or within government.

Proposals on knowledge capture and innovation are being worked through – a perpetual challenge in a project-based industry and, perhaps, even more so in green construction. In parallel, a call for evidence has been issued to build as clear a picture as possible of current or planned knowledge and research, including examples of best practice.

The infrastructure sector is being examined to demonstrate how cash and carbon go hand in hand and case studies will be produced.

Work is underway to look at bridging the gap between designed and actual performance of non-domestic buildings. There is a working group dedicated to building our understanding of how the market values green buildings. Another group is looking at the industry’s own processes and making these as green as possible and a further one looking at promotion.

The board has had discussions with senior officials from DECC about the Green Deal. It has had discussions with DCLG Ministers about their department’s approach to property and regulation. It is looking forward to a discussion with Defra on the wider sustainability picture.

Ensuring informed decisions

The Green Construction Board’s role is to influence decisions and ensure they are taken with the benefit of the knowledge and advice of senior business people from the industry. Business should lead the discussion of where the opportunities for growth may lie – but the final decisions on particular policies and issues sit elsewhere. The Board is a collaboration and will not take a public position on particular issues – that would simply reduce its capacity to be a positive influence and a trusted source of advice.

The Green Construction Board is all about making the most of the opportunities for green growth. It believes many businesses are already profiting from green construction opportunities. There were over 1,500 exhibitors at this year’s Ecobuild, the world’s biggest event for sustainable construction and the largest construction event in the UK. Proof positive that very many people share the Board’s belief in those business opportunities and are willing to invest in them.

Further information

• Green Construction Board

Contact the Green Construction Board at green.board@bis.gsi.gov.uk

The Ecosystem Markets Task Force brings together ten industry leaders and experts from a wide range of sectors – from banking and biodiversity, conservation to beauty – to look at how ecosystem markets can provide opportunities for UK business to flourish and grow, while at the same time helping value and protect nature.

The philosophy behind it is that markets can, in some areas, be good for the both business and the environment, not least because we are often trying to correct market failure.

Who is on the Task Force?

Announced in the Government’s Natural Environment White Paper, and launched in the city last November, the Task Force’s members are:

• Ian Cheshire, Task Force Chair and Group Chief Executive Officer, Kingfisher plc;
• Kim Buckland, Co-Founder, Liz Earle;
• Vivienne Cox, Chair, Climate Change Capital;
• Jack Frost, Director of Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells;
• David Hill, Chair of the Environment Bank;
• Russ Houlden, CFO, United Utilities;
• Mike Wright, Executive Director at Jaguar Land Rover;
• Martin Roberts, Programme Director of the Cambridge Natural Capital Leaders Platform;
• Amanda Sourry, Chairman of Unilever UK and Ireland;
• Peter Young, Strategy Director at SKM Enviros and Chairman of the Aldersgate Group.

It’s an impressive roll call, and in less than a year these ten senior business leaders will bring their insight and experience to bear to advise the Government on what business can do to ensure the UK economy is both green and growing.

Reporting to three Secretaries of State (for Business, Innovation & Skills; Energy & Climate Change; and Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) means this is a real opportunity for business to help the Government shape the market conditions in this emerging area. Bringing together so many brilliant people allows us to leverage their expertise to find real solutions, but finding time in busy diaries can be a challenge!

How the Task Force works

The Task Force is following three steps to identify business opportunities:

• What’s the problem? The Task Force is interested in where the market failures are, and where the environmental problems are.
• What is the evidence, and where does it suggest the opportunities are? The Task Force wants to use the existing evidence wherever possible, because there is a lot of it, and none of us have any desire to waste money or time. The plan is to take a broad look at all the possible opportunities, and narrow them down to the best four of five.
• How does the Task Force (or business, or government) enable and secure these opportunities? What needs to be done so a new market can be opened up, or a current process greened? Who needs to do it – business or government – and how? Regulation, evidence, frameworks for investment: everything is on the table.

It sounds simple, but it isn’t and the Task Force needs your help…

Calling for evidence

…and here’s your opportunity to be involved – a call for evidence has just been launched and is open until 27th April.

The Task Force has written a short paper to set out its thinking to date what the current ideas are and the sort of evidence it is interested in. There’s also a survey with some structured questions. The discussion paper and survey are available online.

We hope a wide range of stakeholders will complete the questionnaire but if you’d rather have a chat please email the secretariat at ecosystemmarketstaskforce@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Anyone can respond to the call for evidence – we really want as wide a range of views as possible, not least because the Task Force is committed to not reinventing the wheel.  We’ll use this information to get a richer understanding of what’s out there, prioritise areas where they think there are opportunities for business and – crucially – start to understand what government (and business) needs to do to realise them.

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Defra’s recent evidence-based study into the benefits of environmental management systems for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) presents new evidence of the financial benefits of green business. Four companies involved in the study agreed to showcase their experiences through case studies, which have been published alongside the main report.

What is the study about and why is that significant?

The study provides new evidence of the financial benefits to SMEs of developing an accredited environmental management system (EMS) to assess and manage their environmental impacts, and help use resources more efficiently. This supports Defra’s view that embedding resource efficiency across business operations brings benefits to the whole organisation. While not statistically significant, the sample of 31 SMEs used in the study is still the largest group of small and medium sized enterprises to undergo a detailed investigation of its certified EMS in the UK.

Defra encourages all organisations to implement an environmental management system, which is a structured framework for managing an organisation’s significant environmental impacts. Similar to quality and safety management systems, an EMS can be a practical tool to help organisations manage, evaluate and improve their environmental performance in a verifiable way as well as meet their legal obligations concerning the environment.

Organisations can demonstrate their commitment to meeting their environmental responsibilities by getting their EMS certified to ISO 14001, BS 8555, or the EU Eco-Management Audit Scheme, all of which are standards accredited by the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS).

What are the key findings of the study?

Two thirds of businesses surveyed either increased sales, or expected to do so, since implementing an environmental management system.  This breaks down into just over a third of SMEs in the study attributing their new business sales to implementing a certified EMS, and quoting an average value of £14,961 per £1m turnover in the year following certification, suggesting a payback period of 1 month for the new business sales alone versus EMS costs. Another third confirmed that they expected new sales to be achieved as a result of their EMS, but could not put a value on it.

Commercial and marketing opportunities were by far the most important initial trigger for the SMEs’ decision to adopt an EMS, suggesting that this is more important than cost savings in converting SMEs to the benefits of EMSs.

Nevertheless, certified EMSs delivered cost savings for the majority of the 31 SMEs, with an annual average saving over 2 years of £4,875 per £m turnover. The costs of certifying and implementing the EMS were calculated at £1,362 per £m turnover (annual average over 2 years), suggesting a payback period of 3 months for the cost savings.

What was the reason for the study, and what problems did it seek to address?

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are a vital part of the local and national economy accounting for 99.9% of all enterprises in the UK, and providing 59.8% of all private sector jobs in 2009. Due to their sheer number (about 2.9 million), SMEs collectively have the potential to exert significant pressures on the environment, but face a number of obstacles to addressing these pressures including lack of resources, specific expertise, information and awareness. Despite the vast number of SMEs in the UK only a very small proportion hold a certified environmental management system (EMS).

The purpose of this study was to deliver robust evidence on the environmental and financial benefits of certified EMSs for SMEs by surveying selected SMEs from both manufacturing and service sectors. The subsequent aim was to use this evidence to increase SME uptake of accredited EMSs as a method of unlocking the latent environmental and financial savings that are believed to exist in the SME sector as a whole.

How was the study conducted, and how robust was it?

The study was conducted by WYG, a  global multi-disciplinary consultancy, whose researchers measured the effectiveness of EMS implementation by a sample of SMEs taken from the manufacturing and service sectors. They investigated the level of environmental and cost savings the SMEs had achieved, including any new business sales. The international EMS standard ISO 14001 dominated the study’s sample of 31 SMEs, which tallies with the market dominance of this standard in the UK. Six of these had used the BS 8555/Acorn approach to reach ISO 14001, while 3 had remained at a particular BS 8555/Acorn phase.

Numerous methods were used to recruit SMEs for the study, however the SMEs were not randomly selected and each chose to participate in the study so were therefore ‘self-selecting’. Therefore the results should be viewed as a series of case studies from which useful data can be drawn to raise awareness of the potential benefits of an accredited EMS for an SME

What other interesting findings came out of the study?

There was considerable variation in the savings seen. Not all SMEs in the study achieved savings but those SMEs that invested more in implementing the EMS upfront achieved the highest savings.

All but one of the SMEs in the study had received requests for information from customers about their EMS and over a half of the SMEs had in turn contacted their suppliers.

The study showed, the environmental issues that delivered the highest cumulative cost savings were energy, raw materials and business travel.  Waste to landfill contributed the highest average savings at 28 percent in year one and 43 percent in year two. Furthermore, 28 SMEs made an average cumulative saving in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of 38.9 tonnes per £m turnover per SME and that the carbon savings improved over time (Year 2 figures up 59% on Year 1 figures).

Environment Minister Richard Benyon underlined the link between environmental management and sustainable growth:

“All businesses should be planning green and growth together – thinking strategically about environmental management leads to more sales, bigger profits and a more attractive business to clients and investors.

“It’s one of Defra’s top priorities to build a strong and sustainable green economy that is resilient to climate change. With business, we are working to green and grow our entire economy, protecting our environment and creating new investment, technologies and opportunities for trade.”

What are the next steps?

One of the aims of the study was to use the evidence to increase SME uptake of accredited EMSs as a method of unlocking the latent environmental and financial savings that are believed to exist in the SME sector as a whole. As part of this, Defra and WYG are in the process of disseminating the results of the study as widely as possible to the SME community, through their trade associations, stakeholder organisations and media channels.

Further information

• Evidence-based Study into the Benefits of EMSs for SMEs: full report, summary and case studies available to download.

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We need green economy roadmaps with “concrete goals and benchmarks of progress” and we need them fast, according to the zero draft (pdf) of the outcome document from the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20. Between now and 2015 this ambitious plan aims to establish indicators to evaluate implementation, mechanisms for technology transfer, sharing of know-how and capacity building.

Technology and innovation can doubtless help shift the direction of development so that it contributes to sustainable development goals, or keeps the global system within the ‘safe operating space’ suggested by records from the pre-anthropocene. In this sense, the overall direction of travel is clear. However, the routes available are wide open, and the end destination will be determined not by any blueprint for what a green economy will look like, but by our endless creativity and collective values.

The metaphor of the roadmap can be seen as marking out routes for innovation that see input-output measures of current technologies (such as energy/carbon or resource intensity, pollution reduction or the creation of high quality employment) increasingly improving in their contribution to sustainable development.

But the roads ahead are determined by our current location. Whilst roadmaps drawn up by industrial sectors might act as 20-lane highways down which firms race in competition for market share and technological dominance, there are many other stakeholders and communities who start from very different locations in their search for sustainability.

The STEPS Centre argues that equal attention must be paid to the multitude of bicycle lanes, bush-paths and mountain trails that draw on the knowledge and creativity held within these groups to collectively carry them in the direction of a more environmentally-sustainable, just and prosperous future.

How can we ensure due attention is paid to these groups and their pathways to sustainability? The first step is to recognise that the direction of change – not the kinds of technologies we currently favour – should provide the basis for setting goals. At the international level, therefore, rather than aiming for a specific number of people to be connected to a national electricity grid, or a specific number of square meters of thin film solar PV to be installed, by 2030, we should focus on the provision of energy services, without specifying what technologies are most appropriate in given contexts. Different technological options can be explored through inclusive political processes and market mechanisms or other policy instruments can thereafter be formulated in a way that stimulates continuous innovation and enables human ingenuity to explore new pathways to sustainability.

The STEPS Centre’s session on Day 2 of Planet Under Pressure Pathways to sustainability: opening up technological futures in the green economy will explore novel ways of contributing to this governance challenge – through technology assessment, participatory technology development, market mechanisms and social inclusion.

At the same time, there is also a need to recognise the intrinsic ability of some technologies (or socio-technical systems) to work to close down future possible pathways – through economic, political or ecological impacts. Another session – Governance of Emerging Technologies in the context of sustainable development – aims to explore how innovations can be fully and fairly assessed for their safety, ethics, societal or environmental impacts. Emerging technological ‘superhighways’ have the potential to ‘steer’ our collective future pathways and deserve more co-ordinated attention from the international community.

Through highlighting directions of travel rather than routes or destinations, roadmaps can serve as useful guides to sustainable development. The Planet Under Pressure conference offers a unique opportunity for the international community to explore diverse pathways towards a greener, fairer economy.

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