London Wider Waste Strategy - London - Greater London Authority

• Of those companies who had taken some form of positive environmental action,
54% were motivated by concern for the environment, 39% by legislative pressure,
8% by potential business benefits and 4% by customer pressure
• SMEs are most likely to ask their local authority for assistance on environmental
matters (60% of those who had sought help), followed by waste businesses (35%),
the regulator (35%), trade/professional organisations (14%) and consultants (10%).
However, not all local authorities may be geared up for giving this kind of advice.
• 41% of SMEs would like more information and advice on environmental issues.
Recommendation 10: It is recommended that support is provided to local authorities
to advise SMEs about environmental (including waste-related) matters, as the
majority seek assistance from local authorities.
4.115. From the report, it appears that specific questions were not asked on the costs and
benefits of waste minimisation.
4.116. The findings of the survey suggest that the majority of SMEs have undertaken little
action to directly improve their impacts on the environment and have a poor knowledge
of regulatory issues although nearly half would like more information. Nevertheless,
they recognise the potential benefits of good environmental performance and,
interestingly, the greatest driver by far was general concern for the environment
followed by legislative pressure, with potential business benefits and customer pressure
being relatively insignificant.
Recommendation 11: It is recommended that an increase in funding is sought for the
Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to ensure that start-up
assistance is available to as many SME recycling and reprocessing businesses
as possible.
Recommendation 12: SME participation in recycling should be promoted through
measures that make it easy and cheap to participate. These should include the
targeting of clusters of neighbouring businesses, and further investigation of
mixed dry recyclables systems which avoid the need for complete source
separation by providing processing at a central separation facility.
Large Company Activity
4.117. The tables in Appendix C also provide data on the large (250-499 employees) and very
large companies (over 500 employees) in London. Whilst these account for a fraction of
the total number of companies in London, they provide 57% of total employment
(SMEs, large and very large companies) of which the vast majority (52% of total
employment) is in the very large companies. Once again, the commercial sector is
dominant with the greatest number of employees (circa 650,000) in each of the very
large companies of the wholesale, retail and hospitality and the financial and business
sectors. Transport, is the highest industrial sector (520,000 employees in very large
companies). Of this sector, there are 17,064 employees under the control of Transport
for London, which accounts for 3.28% of the total number of employees. Data was not
available for the construction and agricultural sectors in the large and very large
categories, and hence comparisons cannot be drawn in this regard.
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