A national survey of office workers has found 61 per cent of Sydney workers rate the environment as a critical issue, compared to 43 per cent of Melbourne workers.
The survey, by Double A paper and Galaxy Research, aimed to determine Australian office workers’ attitudes toward the environment and whether they think their employers should be doing more to manage their office’s environmental impact.
A third of all Melbourne workers said their employer does enough for the environment, compared to 20 per cent of Sydney workers.
Seventy five per cent of Sydney professionals said their employer should do more for the environment, while only 60 per cent of respondents living south of the border agree with this statement.
However, 90 per cent of all respondents believe they could be doing more to help the environment when they are at work.

Technorati Tags: office workers reveals environmental awareness, ISO 14001, environmental awareness

We all want to help our children and grandchildren to inherit a great place to live. I think that is a given for all of us. ………I recognise that only profitable businesses can afford to make changes to protect the environment.

My challenge is to provide effective and affordable tools to help small to medium businesses become more efficient, save money and help the environment at the same time. This is what I provide and support through Enviro Action and I am continually updating and improving these tools based on feedback I get from working with my wonderful clients.

A recent survey of Australian companies by PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows that environmental performance is not a critical concern to many businesses who say that they would like to improve their environmental performance but that it is not a necessity……… I have to disagree here!

66 per cent of public companies are active in improving their performance, while only 51 per cent of private companies were actively pursuing improvement. …….. And small businesses are even slower taking this up.

Key factors highlighted by the survey were:
• Business owners were confused by future environmental issues and how they should respond to them.
• One in four companies believes that public concern about the environment would have no impact on their business.
• Half the businesses surveyed believe that growing public concern about the environment would create opportunities for those companies expecting to make money out of the environment and these would be more likely to invest in improving environmental performance.

My own market research has indicated that city based businesses are less likely to be aware of environmental problems, changes and implications than primary producers.

The fishing and aquaculture industries in particular are very aware of environmental concerns and of their need to deliver responsible environmental outcomes because their access to the fishing grounds and farm sites is under threat from increased regulation and heavy competition from the recreational sector.

So we have two problems for small to medium business –
• how to do this simply - the Easy to be Green system helps here
• how to communicate that is really is easy to small to medium businesses

- because it does matter to them, to all of us and especially to our children and grandchildren!

However …………..
Small businesses can boost profits by cutting back on energy and water use – and feel good about doing so. But a survey by VECCI (Victorian {Australia} Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry) shows that more than a third of businesses do not plan on cutting back and half are unaware of their water and energy use over the last six months. A survey of 90 businesses shows they rank themselves poorly when asked to compare performances to that of households.
Top tips to save electricity include replacing standard light globes with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs and installing technology to ensure lights are turned off when not needed. Turn off TVs, DVD and VCRs at the switch – not by remote control. Switch off all computers, printers and other equipment at the end of the day.

Technorati Tags: ISO 14001