23 October 2015
By Bryan Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
To celebrate over €6 million worth of cost savings identified for SMEs in the last three years, Green Business – based in Little Island – has launched a case study guide to help other businesses to ‘go green’.
The new guide – ‘Greening Your Business…how much can you save?” is packed full of interesting and informative case studies that demonstrate a combined saving of over €700,000 made by companies across various industries while working with Green Business.
23rd October 2015. Pictured at the launch of the ‘Greening Your Business’ booklet is John Durkan (ABP Food Group), Micheal Ó Cinneide (EPA) and James Hogan (Green Business). The case study booklet celebrates €6 million worth of cost savings identified by Green Business in the last three years and is downloadable on http://greenbusiness.ie/newsblog. Photo: Aidan Oliver.
Funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, Green Business is a free and confidential resource efficiency consultancy service that has worked closely with hundreds of businesses big and small on how to reduce their costs, wastage and environmental footprint.
“More and more businesses are seeing the value and huge potential benefits of managing resources such as water, energy and raw materials and this booklet aims to encourage other businesses to follow their lead,” said James Hogan, programme manager of Green Business.
“Our booklet showcases some great examples of how companies small and large have improved their sustainability by reducing costs and reducing their environmental footprint through often no and low cost measures. Small companies have as much to gain as large companies by becoming resource efficient. The booklet includes La Trattoria restaurant in Cork which reduced it oil by by 33% by recovering heat form the kitchen.”
This new downloadable booklet demonstrates how businesses such as Kerry Foods, ABP Food Group, Slaney Foods, Sofrimar, and Ballon Meats implemented relatively low cost and simple resource efficiencies to increase profit that secures jobs and facilitates business growth.
ABP Food Group, which has a turnover of €3 billion, is among the Irish businesses leading the charge on green practices by achieving its target of zero waste to landfill for its six facilities in Ireland.
John Durkan, Group Environmental and Sustainability Manager with ABP Food Group, explained how the company reduced its water consumption by 45%, saving €150,000 per annum on the cost of water and energy, with a return on investment achieved in just four months.
“Our primary driver is a moral obligation to the environment given how reliant the agri-food environment is on keeping the environment pristine. We believe sustainability is one of the key areas where Irish products can differentiate themselves and achieve added credibility in international markets, and we’re very proud of the dedicated efforts we’ve taken to implement and maintain resource efficiencies.”
