The Government has launched ‘Developing a Green Enterprise’, a concise guide for businesses in Ireland to the supports (including State-funded programmes) offered by the various State agencies with responsibility for environment, enterprise development and energy.

The Green Enterprise Guide has been developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. Developing a Green Enterprise provides directional information on where different businesses can go for assistance in relation to water conservation, waste prevention, energy efficiency and clean technology.  The guide also provides an overview of the key state agencies involved and the programmes and assistance they offer.

Over half of all Irish companies have taken action to improve their energy efficiency in the last three years, according to Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), and only one-third of these actions have involved a capital spend. Reducing energy costs is a key priority for Irish business and where energy efficiency initiatives were implemented, most businesses have achieved average energy cost savings of 12%.

Businesses that have participated in the EPA’s Greenbusiness initiative in 2010 have identified almost Eur10 million worth of savings from an investment by the EPA of less than Eur1 million.

The Government has officially launched www.FreeTradeIreland.ie, a free national service where householders and businesses can pick up and pass on quality items such as home and office furniture, baby goods, electronics, DIY/construction materials and tools, sports equipment, musical instruments, toys, gardening accessories and motoring items. The online service is free to use and people can view ads for items as well as post items of their own once are a member of the site.

Arrangement to collect items are made directly with the person advertising the item and no cost applies to either party. Items posted up on the website are generally in good condition, full working order and ideal for reuse.

The FreeTrade Ireland service is supported by Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and funded by the Local Authorities across Ireland. The website aims to help prevent usable items going to landfill and increase the lifespan of items for reuse.

The service has been designed to be as user friendly as possible with an innovative search engine the centre-piece of the website. The website also records reuse data through the site, features mapping and alerts which help users with their searches. Householders and businesses members of the site can view in their membership accounts a list of their posted items – a useful and valuable addition to companies who prepare reports on their environmental actions.

The Free Trade service originated as a regional reuse service for Dublin on DublinWaste.ie in 2006. Due to its success it was then expanded to become FreeTradeIreland.ie in July 2010 with Mayo County Council acting as the lead authority. Since the service has commenced over 38,000 items have found new homes. In the ten months FreeTradeIreland.ie has been operational nearly one million people have visited the website and over 7,600 items have been passed on and reused.

Approximately 40% of items on Free Trade Ireland fit in to the furniture category. Generally these items are bulky in nature, difficult to take to recycling centres, take up most of the space in a costly skip and most importantly are reusable or restorable.

In addition to the www.FreeTradeIreland.ie website and the Free Trade Ireland Facebook page, people can track and obtain items on iPhone, iPod touch and Android phones by downloading the FreeTrade Ireland App from iTunes and Android Market which is also, free of charge. The App is one of the first smart phone services developed and funded by local authorities in Ireland.

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Pictured are Brenda McEvoy, from Freetradeireland.ie, with An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD, who officially launched www.FreeTradeIreland.ie.

UK businesses can now apply for green equipment finance from Carbon Trust and Siemens. Worth up to £550 million over the next three years, the dedicated low carbon finance scheme is the first of its kind and will enable UK businesses to invest in cost effective energy efficiency equipment and other low carbon technologies, such as new efficient lighting and biomass heating.

Siemens Financial Services UK will provide the financial backing and manage the provision of funding, whilst Carbon Trust Implementation Services (a subsidiary of the Carbon Trust) will use its expertise in carbon saving from energy efficient technologies to independently assess the carbon, energy and cost savings of any project. This should enable the financing to pay for itself through energy savings and result in no net cost to the customer.

A report published by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) highlights the continued fall in electricity and gas prices over the last year as Ireland strengthens its competitive position vis-a-vis energy pricing across the European Union.

The latest Electricity and Gas Prices (in Ireland) Report shows that in the year to June 2010, businesses and householders benefited from falling energy prices. Householders experienced a large fall in electricity prices of 12% bringing prices in line with the EU average, and a fall of between 20%-35% was witnessed by medium to large businesses, compared with the EU average of 4%, the largest drop in the EU. Domestic gas prices also fell by 23% and SMEs experienced a drop bringing them between 7%-18% beneath the EU average.

Professor Owen Lewis, chief executive of SEAI.

Professor Owen Lewis, chief executive of SEAI, Comments: “Despite misconceptions that Ireland’s energy prices are out of line with the rest of Europe, we have witnessed a steady trend towards lower energy prices for most users in recent years. It is encouraging to see that Ireland is now at or below the average in terms of energy pricing across the EU. Given current economic challenges facing Ireland, the fall in energy prices is very good news for businesses, for whom competitiveness remains a key issue. Over half of the electricity sold to Ireland’s business customers in the first six months of the year was below the EU average signalling the success of a more open energy trading market.”

The Electricity and Gas Prices (in Ireland) Report can be found on the SEAI website at: www.seai.ie/statistics.

As part of a concerted effort to green the Wexford Festival Opera, 16 Wexford businesses were certified ‘green’ at a recent awards ceremony held at the Wexford Opera House. The 16 premises have met with environmental standards set down by the Green Hospitality Programme (GHP) and €concertive and are leading the way to making Wexford a green destination for visitors and business.

Examples of exemplary savings, both monetary and resource efficiency, include the Riverbank Hotel which has cut it its water bill by €35,000 per annum through leak detection and improved water efficiency and the Maldron Hotel, Wexford which has taken measures to cut its waste bill by 50% and has recently reduced water consumption by 40%.

Funded by the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Waste Prevention Programme, the project has proven extremely successful to date, with more than 30 businesses around County Wexford signed up to the ‘Green Aware’ programme. All of these businesses are striving to achieve environmental certification, in the form of the Green Hospitality ‘Eco-label’ or the ‘€concertive Eco-cert’. Both of these labels are EPA recognised environmental management programmes for small businesses.

If the participant businesses can reduce water and energy use, and cut the amount of waste they produce, they will assist in reducing the environmental impact of the Wexford Festival Opera, whilst also saving significant amounts of money for their businesses/

Dr Gerry Byrne, EPA programme manager.

“The dedication of businesses in Wexford to green Wexford Festival Opera has been phenomenal,” says Dr Gerry Byrne, EPA programme manager. “We believe it is just the start of a process to move Wexford towards becoming a ‘green destination’ and promote itself as being more sustainable for future visitors and businesses.”

Participating businesses in greening Wexford Festival Opera will be listed in a ‘Green Trail’, which maps out a route for visitors to the festival – so that they can choose to support the green businesses and make their own Opera experience a more environmentally friendly one.

The ‘Green Aware’ Programme is also encouraging Wexford homes to participate in the An Taisce Green Home Programme. The Programme assists volunteers to find out how they can make their homes greener by reducing water usage, waste generation, and energy consumption, and by learning about composting and sustainable transport. In turn, they too can save money on their household bills.