One day each year, the 19 employees at Aberdeen Fluid Systems Technologies have an "environmental fun day", clearing up rubbish from the woods near their workplace. If this seems like a strange way for a firm to deploy its workers, that's not how Alasdair MacNeil, the company's business development manager, sees it.
He says it's a way for Aberdeen Fluid, a supplier of valves and fittings for the oil and gas industry, to come together and show their commitment as a team to environmental standards. "We clear the woods of plastic and other rubbish," says Mr MacNeil. "It brings people together and buys them into the idea."
Going down to the woods is the lighter side of an environmental management system Aberdeen Fluid implemented in 2003. Since then, its energy costs bill has dropped by 30%, even though the company has seen strong growth. Another big plus is that it is eligible to compete for contracts barred to suppliers without certifiable environmental standards.
For Aberdeen Fluid, environmental standards have been entirely positive. Yet, one in three UK companies still do not have environmental management systems in place, according to a survey released today by the British Standards Institution (BSI), a business services provider covering Britain's biggest 250 companies.
"We all know time is running out to take action on the environment," says Mike Low, director of BSI British Standards. "It's encouraging to see that companies recognise the social and business benefits of going green but we've clearly still got some way to go."
Many of Britain's leading companies such as Rolls-Royce, the aircraft engine maker, and Wimpey, the construction firm, do have environmental management systems in place. The BSI says it is the smaller companies, which regard such systems as an extra cost and a burden, who lag behind.
Global standards
The impetus for developing a series of international standards on environmental management came from the 1992 Rio summit. As a number of national standards emerged, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) created a group to investigate how such standards might benefit business and industry. It eventually created an international standard called ISO 14000.
ISO 14001, used by Rolls and AFS, identifies the activities of a firm that have an environmental impact, sets improvement targets and a management programme to achieve them. Some 8,000 UK companies and 100,000 international businesses have ISO 14001 registration.
For Aberdeen Fluid, reaching the ISO 14001 standard took around seven months. In practical terms it meant, for example, switching off all lights and computers at night and over the weekend, leaving only the main computer servers on. Paper is recycled and boxes are reused, saving the firm £2,000 a year on packaging.
If ISO 14001 standards are so beneficial, why don't all companies adopt them? Alasdair MacNeil puts it down to a lack of understanding. He says: "Many entrepreneurs treat such processes and procedures as red tape and a cost and they don't understand the benefits." But he makes the point that small companies are ideally placed to adopt environmental standards because it's easier to bring a small group of people along.
Nigel Marsh, head of environment management at Rolls-Royce, might have some sympathy with that sentiment. A huge multinational, Rolls-Royce has plants in various parts of the world including the US and Germany.
He has noticed big differences from region to region, with employees in Germany and Nordic countries taking their recycling responsibilities very seriously, while employees in the UK and US are nowhere near as environmentally responsible. "It can be very variable, depending what factory you're in," says Mr Marsh.
He adds: "There is a major cultural problem in getting some people to follow simple instructions on waste and recycling. To get a step change, we need to look at behaviour at some point." Perhaps, Rolls-Royce could consider Aberdeen Fluid's idea of an environmental fun day.
