One in five contracts are under review as large businesses struggle to ascertain their scope 3 emissions*.
How can LoCASE help your business? With the Steps To Environmental Management scheme

The aim of this free business support is to facilitate the reduction of carbon emissions across the South and East by providing training, tools and resources to small and medium enterprises to implement an environmental management system or plan.

This is delivered by the LoCASE partnership across three levels: Blue, Silver and Gold. Each SME completes a stage, moves on to the next level and achieves accreditation.

In the BLUE introductory session, we take firms through what it means to have an environmental policy, what to include in (and how to carry out) a baseline assessment of your activities and impacts. You’ll have the chance to share views and experiences with others, learn more about new opportunities which might be relevant to your operations and ultimately prepare you for moving to the next stage of improving your environmental performance and potentially reducing energy costs. There’ll also be guidance about other support available to you in the region. 

In the SILVER and Gold sessions, we build on the basics from the BLUE level workshop/training and cover the following topics:

• Assuring compliance obligations are met
• Setting objectives and targets
• Measuring environmental performance
• Establishing methods of communication and training
• Agreeing your roles and responsibilities.

You’ll again have the chance to share views and experiences with others, helping you move to the next stage of improving your environmental performance further.

Positive reasons to join the STEM workshops: 

• It’s free 
• Even with no prior experience, tools and information are provided to allow an organisation to build an environmental management system from scratch
• Those with an existing system can use or borrow from tools provided to update or streamline their existing system
• Able to pose questions to staff with background and knowledge in environmental management. 
• Workshops serve as a good place to network with likeminded organisations
• Accreditation recognised by a range of local organisations when tendering for work
• Organisations report implementing energy saving measures and the like to help meet targets set during workshops, often making financial savings
• Through the workshops participants are often made aware of other free services or resources available to them, both from other organisations and LoCASE itself, including events such as conferences, grants or subsidised stand spaces at exhibitions.

The main achievements of the scheme include being recognised by a number of councils across the South East in their pre-qualification questionnaires to satisfy their basic environmental requirements. Brighton and Hove, Oxfordshire and Sevenoaks among others have all helped to deliver the scheme.

• Over 500 businesses have undertaken at least one level of the scheme.
•  The scheme has obtained supporting statements from both IEMA
(Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment)
IEMA (Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment)
IEMA (Institute of environmental assessment) and the Carbon Trust.
• Businesses can use an environment management plan to deliver energy saving projects and unlock LoCASE funding to support these activities.

* Scope 1 and 2 emissions are a mandatory part of reporting for many organisations across the world and relate to systems that are within reasonable control of an entity, such as onsite and purchased energy. Scope 3 emissions are centred on sources of emissions that are more external to a specific organisation, such as those across the supply chain.

Get involved
The Low Carbon Across the South and East (LoCASE) programme is designed to help SME businesses across Kent, Greater Essex, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and the Solent area make the transition to a low carbon economy. The Programme helps green SMEs grow and improve their resource efficiency through funding and business support.

LoCASE is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.

To find out more, visit the website at www.LoCASE.co.uk