Susanne Dansey’s Blog

For those Down Under or who got the chance to go to SMB Nation, you may have bumped into Jeremy Hunt. I got the chance to meet him last year but it was only in September that I got the chance to talk to him properly and find out what he does.

I have the pleasure to have Jeremy as a friend and he and a few other familiar faces got plenty of time to catch up and compare businesses. Now that we are just starting to recover from the long haul flights, we’ve been keeping in touch by the power of the Internet and I am pleased to share with you a recent success from our Kiwi peers.

Jeremy founded Fisheye with co-owner Anna Hughes and together with the rest of the team they have built their business success on a passion for promoting sustainability and communities in business.

The guys at Fisheye are now the proud Winners of the ‘2006 Northern Sustainable Business Innovator Award’ which recognises their economic and environmental awareness as a business. So congratulations to them and make sure you take time to visit their site so you can understand exactly what they are about.

I have always found Jeremy’s view on business very thoughtful and if you get the chance to talk to him you will very soon realise that this business isn’t just about what most recognise as a bottom line (profit).

Instead they have a triple bottom line:

• People
• Profit
• Planet

And here’s the thing, what Fisheye encourage isn’t radical anymore - it’s something everyone should be considering. Fisheye’s foresight has allowed them to set the standard which the rest of us should be at least following. Ensuring the the safe desposal of your IT hardware is not just a choice anymore; it’s a legal requirement and what you do now will affect you in the future. Recycling waste more efficiently and being resourceful with what you use is not just a nice thing to do, but it’s good business practice.

But it’s not easy being green so educating your staff, your customers, and making choices to use those who adopt greener policies can be harder than you think. However, if you start to make changes that deliver real benefits (and in fact don’t take much effort) then it’ll be easier to convince and work with those who subscribe to your way of thinking.

There are plenty of resources to help advise you on this subject.

• Growupgreen
• Carbon Trust
• IT Resource Guide for UK Charities and non-profit Organisations
• WEEE Recycling
• RoHS Directive
• Envirowise (UK Government Website)

Again, you just need to sit down and work out how you can adopt it into your business strategy. Don’t forget though, and I’ll use my usual imagery - eating an elephant is a lot easier in small pieces, so start by making the easiest changes first.

In our office we have a bag for organic waste (this then goes home to one of our worm bins) and we have separate containers for our rubbish so that we can recycle it correctly. We also recycle all our waste consumables (toners, mobile phones) and more importantly despose of our hardware safely and securely.

What could YOU be doing better to help contribue to a sustainable future and adhere to Government policies?

(If you live in or around Kent, there is a FREE ‘Buying Greener in the South East’ taking place on the 24th October this year in Ashford. For more information click here.)