Go Green - Case Study - Elevating Success

Elevating their way to a Successful Green Future

Elevating Success, a new mentoring and training company based in Croydon, are reaping instant benefits since receiving a visit from their local Greening Business Officer from southlondon.biz, who pointed them in the right direction through a service funded by the London Development Agency.

An opportune visit with his Accountants, where a business showcase open day was being held, brought the Go Green programme to the attention of Andrew Brown, Director of Elevating Success. “I have always been an environmentally friendly person,” said Andrew “and I wanted Elevating Success to focus on this same ethos in some way, preferably by saving both money and energy.” Andrew quickly snapped up the 2 hour consultation on offer under the Go Green programme, after which the business is also eligible for a grant for costs incurred through implementing changes that have been recommended in the action plan.

Lee Sexton, the Greening Business Officer for southlondon.biz, conducted the consultation, which costs a nominal £10. “The consultation was excellent,” added Andrew, “Lee enlightened us about things that we had never even thought about, and then she took me on a tour of my own building suggesting changes – things that had never entered my mind. One of the biggest changes we have made is so simple – to use fewer lights while in the building. Before the consultation, staff would come into the building and automatically turn all the office lights on for the whole floor. Now we only turn on the lights for the offices that we will be using that day.”

The savings do not stop at energy, water is being saved too. “We have 10 toilets in our building, 8 of which are of the old style with a high consumption of water. Lee told me about ‘hippo bags’ that you can place in the toilets, and they are provided free from Thames Water – it is such a simple but effective way of saving both money and water.”

Apart from these simple and free ways to save energy and money, Elevating Success has been able to utilise their £250 grant to save even more energy and reduce waste.

Elevating success run workshops and activities to engage Children and young people from the ages of 5-19 who are not engaged with mainstream education, sometimes running up to 10 workshops a week in their training centre or at clients’ sites. Each workshop generates the need for the printing of workbooks and worksheets for all the students, as well as regular printing of student’s CVs, as they also run workshops to help people get back into work. “The grant allowed us to buy a duplex all-in-one HP Printer which has enabled us to print double sided workbooks for each workshop for the first time – literally cutting the paper usage in half. This has already seen a decrease in paper wastage within the building and at their client’s site.” Taking this initiative one step further, Andrew added “We have also limited the amount of paper left in printers during lessons as many students print more copies than they perhaps need at one time.”

“We are hearing so much in the press about our carbon footprint and recycling and ways that we can save energy, I would recommend other businesses to follow the Go Green initiative without hesitation. Having the report produced was very eye opening for all my staff and has really set us on a positive and practical path to save money and energy – and it’s all been at a cost of just £10.”

The service is available to businesses in the five London boroughs of Merton, Kingston, Sutton, Croydon and Wandsworth, focusing on businesses that have not sought support from publicly funded business agencies in the past. Businesses like Elevating Success can apply for small grants to help them implement appropriate solutions.

For more information on the ‘Go Green’ programme please contact Helen Clark Bell at southlondon.biz on 0208 947 0055, email gogreen@southlondon.biz

For more information on Elevating Success - visit www.elevatingsuccess.co.uk