GREEN GUIDE - Markham Publishing

CASE STUDY: Green StandardsReducing landfillGreen Standards redistributes corporatefurniture and IT equipment otherwisedestined for landfill to the community. Over434 million tonnes of landfill goes into the UKevery year, enough to fill the Royal Albert Hallevery hour of every day.Green Standards was set up in 2002, by GregBlezard and Alan Cooper, to take positive actionand provide corporates with a social, environmentaland economical solution to this problem.Working with multinationals such as BP, Elsevier,Johnson Control, Green Standards removes highvolumes of furniture and equipment, a proportionof which would be destined for landfill and makesthis available to the local community, charities,hospitals, schools and libraries via The GreenStandards Trust. In addition you can purchase thesecond hand furniture and IT equipment on-lineat www.greenstandards.co.uk, with all proceedsfrom sales going to The Green Standards Trust.The Green Standards Trust is a registered charity,which operates independently and with thesupport of profits from Green Standards Ltd. It iscurrently opening a series of local CommunitySustainability Center’s (CSC) across the UK, thefirst of which opened in Andover at the end of2004 with local business Byte Bak. Local CSC’s arevenues for charities, schools and libraries in thearea to easily access furniture and IT equipmentfreely, and for local businesses to purchase highquality second user furniture and equipment.In addition The Green Standards Trust is shippingout its first school in a box to Morocco in February2005, a huge container with everything that isneeded to set up a school in a third world country.By Greg Blezard of Green Standards, WhiteshillHouse, Whiteshill, Hambrook, Bristol BS16 1SDT: 0870 2401445E: greg.blezard@greenstandards.co.ukW: www.greenstandards.co.ukCASE STUDY: BioRegional DevelopmentSustainable strategies for wasteBioRegional Development Group are sustainablesolutions specialists working to bring local sustainabilityinto the mainstream of our society.We develop environmental projects and companieswhich use local and waste resources moresustainably, with a host of benefits including: reducing unnecessary transport reducing greenhouse gas emissions reducing the amount of waste going to landfill benefiting wildlife strengthening local economies and local jobsWe aim to influence the mainstream, workingwith industry and the public sector to developworkable solutions for sustainability. This ensuresour work has maximum impact in making a sustainableeconomy a reality.BioRegional have over ten years experience ofdeveloping and running sustainability projects,including: partnering in the Peabody Trust’sBedZED – the UK’s largest eco-village. We haveexpanded from this base in a jointBioRegional/WWF initiative called One PlanetLiving which, working with partners, will build atleast five One Planet Living Communities aroundthe world. The first in the UK will be Z-squared –a 2,000 home development in London’s ThamesGateway area. We also work in forestry, includingproducing sustainable charcoal and firewoodthrough the BioRegional Charcoal Co., and woodchipfor energy for BedZED and beyond. Fibresfor paper and textiles is another area of our operations.We run paper recycling and buy backloops in London and Surrey with over 600 officesparticipating. We have invented new technologyto make paper pulp locally from non-woodsources. In addition we are investigating newways to process hemp to provide sustainablealternatives to cotton and synthetics.By Jennie Organ. Tel 0208 404 4880E: info@bioregional.com W: www.bioregional.com176