FD's of small and medium sized businesses generally control finance, HR and IT, and as a result are often best placed to make policy decisions that can have a direct impact on the environment.

As FD of Seaward Electronic, a UK-based manufacturer of electrical safety test equipment employing 150 people with a worldwide distribution network, I believe all businesses have an obligation to minimise their impact on the environment.

Over the past few months Seaward has taken the first steps towards significantly reducing its impact on the environment and, in particular, reducing its carbon emissions.

Change cannot be achieved without setting targets and the first thing we did, even before benchmarking the business, was to set an ambitious target of reducing carbon emissions by 20% every year for the next three years. The purpose of a target in the early stages was to focus everyone's mind on the objective and not just view it as a whim.

Senior managers were involved at an early stage and I ensured they participated in drafting our environmental policy that would provide a focal point for business improvement activities. It's important that all staff can relate to the environmental policy and ours is short, punchy and worded in layman's terms.

Next, I set up a carbon management group which would have the power to drive change throughout the business. Membership of the group was on a voluntary basis and while a wide cross section of employees would be useful I was more interested in having a passionate team. The results were good with half a dozen people coming forward - just the right size for a group to be proactive.

Benchmarking the company's carbon emissions was the next critical step. I decided to use the benchmarking activity as an opportunity to identify wastage, and as this was likely to take several weeks of solid work, the company employed a student who, under my direction, carried out the appropriate analysis and drew up an in-house emissions report. During this period support was received from a number of bodies including the Carbon Trust and Envirowise, which provided unlimited free advice.

The in-house emissions report was eye opening. Our initial estimates revealed that our Durham manufacturing site was producing in the region of 400 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The emissions report has now been presented to the senior management of the business and an action plan has been drawn up for the next 12 months, which will be driven forward by the carbon management group.

The great thing about this plan is that it not only reduces carbon emissions but it saves the business money.

Savings

A significant 30% of our electrical cost relates to lighting and I estimate that we are wasting 35,000 Kwh (£3,500) or 15 tonnes of CO2 every year. We have introduced a number of best practices but are going to invest in systems that will significantly cut the cost and amount of energy required to light the premises.

Employees are now asked to turn off certain appliances at the plug when leaving the office for the evening. In one year, one monitor left on standby after hours uses 13kwh of energy, producing 5.5kg of CO2. Over the whole site this equates to almost 2,000 kWh wastage and over 800kg of CO2 per annum.

As savings are achieved, I plan to reinvest into moving towards a 100% green energy electrical supply for the Durham site with the aim of removing 100 tonnes (25%) of CO2.

Before autumn, the business will rearrange its offices to avoid blocking radiators and install radiator reflective panels to reduce the 70% worth of heat (and therefore energy) currently lost through the walls. In addition, individual supplementary fan heaters will be removed as they use an extreme amount of energy.

These exercises will reduce heating costs and CO2 emissions by 15% and the savings will be invested into improving our central heating.

Travel

Business travel accounts for more than half of our emissions and more than 25% of our emissions are from short haul flights. As we have three sites in the UK and one in Florida we are now looking into improving our IT systems to cater for web conferences.

We estimate that these improvements will save £6,000 a year and reduce our CO2 emissions by 40 tonnes. Part of the savings will be reinvested into an offsetting program to cover 'essential' flights.

While our sales team is generally very good at planning visits, a serious dent can be made into the 66 tonnes of CO2 our cars produce. With immediate effect we are introducing tyre pressure gauge key rings for all company car users and, at cost of £8.99, I believe we will save £4,000 a year and reduce our CO2 emissions by at least six tonnes a year. In addition, company car policy now restricts the fleet to cars that do less damage to the environment.

Even the little things add up. With immediate effect water coolers will be switched off overnight. Our two water coolers currently waste 1.92kwh a day with an annual energy consumption of 701 kWh (£70) and 295kg of CO2 per annum.

In the medium term we are looking to purchase a baling system for our cardboard waste and a compressed air system to reduce our business consumables. The capital cost of will be in the region of £10,000 - but with an 18 month payback period and an interest free energy efficiency loan from the carbon trust these projects are no brainers!

In the meantime we are now working with our leading suppliers and designers in order to determine which materials our products should be using in the future and measuring the carbon footprint by changing materials. I believe that this investment is worthwhile and will repay itself many times over as the consumer becomes more environmentally aware when making purchasing decisions.

Seaward Electronic has a long way to go in order to achieve its aim of reducing carbon emissions by 20% for the next three years. But the company now has buy-in at all levels and it's essential that we keep the momentum going. I believe with strong cross departmental support we will achieve our aim.

Mark Marsh is FD of Seaward Electronic