Go Green - Case Study - Park Newsagents

A Boost in Energy Efficiency for Newsagents

A newsagent from Morden has pledged to make his business eco-friendly after being awarded a Go Green grant to boost energy efficiency. Hiren Modi, the owner of Park Newsagents in Epsom Road, was awarded his grant by southlondon.biz to install new fridges which will conserve energy.

Businesses who contact our Go Green scheme are visited by a Greening Business Officer (GBO) and an environmentally-friendly action plan is drawn up. Businesses can then apply for a grant, which is funded by the London Development Agency of up to 50% towards the cost of implementing the action plan and buying new equipment.

Mr Modi said he had always been interested in the environment but afer starting the business a year ago, he wanted to make sure it was as environmentally-friendly as possible. “I found out about the scheme on the Internet,” he said “and I was visited by a GBO who came down and explained everything. It was really interesting and I learnt all about recycling, reusing and reducing energy and simple measures such as switching off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.”

Mr Modi committed to reduce his electricity usage and recycle all his cardboard by 10% by December 2007, and reduce plastic bag usage by 20%. He said, “I am informing all my customers about being more green and using paper bags instead of plastic ones for smaller items. Some of the kids don’t like it but they’ll soon realise the importance of looking after the environment.”

Helen Clark Bell, project manager at southlondon.biz said “At the moment this is a voluntary scheme for businesses to get involved in to become more environmentally friendly but there is a lot of waste legislation in the pipeline and Go Green helps them get ahead of the game.”