Sustainable choices

Stafford Chamber, which is a section of North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce & Industry, is pioneering an important innovation with Stafford Borough's Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) by developing a way to calculate the economic benefits of sustainable development.

Companies are urged to consider 'sustainability', usually without any indication of how it will improve performance. No individual or organisation can exist on capital indefinitely and because fossil fuels (such as oil, gas and coal) and newly mined minerals form part of the earth's capital, which we have consumed at an increasing rate for about two hundred years, we are all paying through climate change and resource depletion. Sustainability will be achieved by living within global income.

Businesses that adjust to this new reality and help their customers to do so should see benefits in the bottom line, so 'how can they identify the best investments to achieve this'? The LSP's Economic Task Group is tackling this problem and asked the Chamber to help by providing test cases. Members wishing to be involved please contact Judy Summers (judysummers@nscci.co.uk) or, if they would like further information, Paul Newman of The Renewable Way (pabn@renewableway.co.uk)

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