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Here's how I ensure our business complies with environmental legislation
Southover Foods is an award-winning family-owned food manufacturing and distribution business based in Brighton. The company employs 39 people in the production and marketing of its high-quality cooked meats and speciality food products. Here, quality manager Shane Beckford explains how complying with environmental legislation provides a range of business benefits.
What I did
Get good advice
"The first thing to remember when considering environmental responsibilities is that ignorance is no defence if you fall foul of the law. It therefore pays to get as much information and advice as possible.
"I regularly use the NetRegs, Envirowise and Business Link websites to get advice and keep me up to date with environmental legislation and best practice. If you're just starting out, there are plenty of free tools available online, such as the Business Link 'Assess your environmental compliance' tool that will point you in the right direction.
"Myself and other key staff members also regularly attend funded courses covering environmental compliance and associated issues. I also find my local council's environmental health department extremely helpful"
Follow robust procedures
"It's useful to consider how environmental compliance policies and procedures can be integrated with quality assurance and health and safety procedures. Many procedures overlap and you can save time and effort by looking at them as a whole. In our case, we have an environmental management system, which helps us to stay on top of compliance issues.
"Waste compliance is a big area for us, for example, making sure that different types of waste are correctly classified and stored. We also have to complete a waste transfer note every time our contractor removes waste from our site to ensure it is going to a registered landfill site. We use our local council for the majority of our waste disposal. It's very cost effective and they have also given us lots of help with recycling as part of the service. In addition, we use a specialist waste disposal company to deal with food waste, which carries special compliance requirements.
"Other areas we've tackled are water pollution prevention, in consultation with our water supplier, and compliance with noise disturbance and air emissions regulations.
"An important factor in ensuring compliance is promoting awareness among employees. It's the people on the ground who carry out the procedures you've put in place, so training and good communication are vital."
Do more than the minimum
"We always aim to do over and above the legal minimum with regard to environmental compliance, not just because of the consequences of getting it wrong, but because it can bring wider business benefits.
"For example, many companies now include specific environmental questions in their tender forms and the work we've done helps us satisfy their requirements. There are also significant cost savings to be made by reducing waste and cutting energy and water consumption in the process of achieving compliance."
What I'd do differently
Build it into the business plan
"While we've committed ourselves to thorough and effective measures to help us fulfil our environmental responsibilities, looking back, we should have built these into our business plan from the start."
Subjects covered in this guide
- Introduction
- Environmental compliance assessment
- Here's how I ensure our business complies with environmental legislation
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Shane Beckford
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