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“French
Property Shop” provides English speakers from around the world with
expert guidance enabling them to purchase properties in France, with the security
of local French expertise.
FPS has over 17 years of experience in this field and has been based in Ashford,
Kent for the last six years with a team of specialist French speaking staff,
all of whom have been driving between 10 and 80 miles a day to get to the
office at a cost of up to £700
per month each. This burden has lead to some former colleagues to pursue alternative
careers and certainly produced staff retention problems. The carbon
footprint purely from driving to and from work is estimated at 6.3 tonnes
per person per year. The additional costs of a conventional office (rent,
rates, etc) when combined with a growing awareness of of the ecological
impact, made FPS start to consider the alternatives to all driving to
a central office.
David Todd (Managing Director) says:
“Our search for practical and cost-effective alternatives led us to
EOS Communications. EOS professionally reviewed our situation and discussed
what we wanted to achieve. In clear, easy to understand language they explained
the best options available to enable us to close the central office and set
up all the employees as home-workers, with business quality broadband to run
PCs and phones, using the Hermes
hosted VoIP telephone system.
In summary, Hermes gives
us all the features of a big office telephone system, including call forwarding
between the phones and free calls between all sites and much lower call costs
for external calls to the UK and France.
As a business, this means that we have benefited in several ways:
1) Reduced Costs
- No leasing costs of a central office
- Telephone costs are lower
2) Improved Staff Productivity
- An average of two hours driving removed every day
- No petrol or other motoring costs
- Net result, happier and less stressed staff
All of which contributes to increased profits and we have genuinely reduced our carbon footprint at the same time!”
Useful link: Go Green Article
| “GTA Civils” is a firm of professional consulting civil engineers established in 1974, providing: highways, infrastructure and drainage design and project management. They have the reputation of getting site projects completed quickly and economically. Martin Roberts (Managing Director) says: They organised the porting of our established business phone numbers, provided new analogue lines with broadband and installed a Hermes hosted VoIP telephone system in the new office. The system runs on a single broadband line, eliminating ISDN line rental costs. They installed all the CAT5e data cabling for the office PC network and for the phones. We no longer have to worry about outgrowing our PBX capacity because with Hermes we can add new telephones as and when we need them without limit. Also, we no longer have a PBX on site with ongoing maintenance costs. We were impressed with the quality of the phones and the ease of use of the whole system. The transition from our old PBX to the Hermes VoIP system in our new premises was made simple for us by EOS. We now have a professional business telephone system at a sensible price and lower ongoing telecom costs than before. EOS Communications are always helpful, easy to get hold of and provide excellent support.”
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Wind Prospect
“Wind Prospect” undertakes all aspects of wind energy development, including design, construction and operation as well as due diligence and validation work. The company has grown from two employees in 1995 into an international organisation with 108 employees with offices in Europe, Australia and USA.
Dr. Euan Cameron (Chairman) says:
“We were looking to relocate one of our UK offices in Haywards Heath.
Given the type of technology on which our Business is based, it is not surprising
that we were drawn towards more modern and greener technologies for the office
systems. So the choice of VoIP for the telephone system was a natural one
and EOS Communications has proved to be a very professional and reliable provider.
We commissioned EOS to install all the data and telephone CAT5e cabling in the new office and to provide the Hermes IP phone system. We subsequently adopted the Hermes system at our offices in Durham, Lancaster, Halifax & Solihull and we are now considering extending the system to our other sites.
I travel frequently to our other sites and EOS configured my Nokia E65 mobile phone so that it doubles as a Hermes IP phone. This means that I can connect to the internet via the WiFi built into the E65 and make free Hermes IP calls from USA, Canada, Australia and China back to our offices around the UK.
The beauty of the system is that we can add new office telephones as and when we need them and the system runs on a single broadband line, reducing the number of line rentals required. We have three digit extension dialling between all sites and all these calls are free. Calls to other numbers in the UK and overseas are substantially cheaper than the traditional alternatives.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this system to any business, particularly if it needs to operate across multiple sites.”
|
Global warming is happening, that is an undisputed fact.
The causes are still the subject of debate, but the overwhelming evidence
is that man is contributing in a significant way. |
 |
So what exactly is happening?
The average global air temperature near the Earth's surface increased 0.74
°C during the hundred years ending in 2005 The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes "most
of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth
century is very likely due to the observed increase in man-made greenhouse
gas concentrations" via an enhanced greenhouse effect.
The detailed causes of the recent warming remain an active field of research, but the scientific consensus is that the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era. This is clearest for the last 50 years, for which the most detailed data are available.
Reproduced Courtesy of Wikipedia
So how could this affect us?
Climate change is a big threat to the future of life on the planet. Already
in the UK, coastal waters have warmed and temperatures have risen. Globally,
sea levels and temperatures are predicted to rise further, and extreme weather
is expected to become more common.
Temperatures rising
The 1990s was the warmest decade in central England since records began in
the 1660s. Summer heat waves are occurring more frequently, and in winter
there are fewer frosts.
Globally, over the past century, the average temperature of the atmosphere
near the earth’s surface has risen by 0.74 degrees Celsius. The scientific
consensus is that global temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees
Celsius above 1980 - 1999 levels by the end of the 21st century, depending
on the levels of future greenhouse gas emissions.
Changing sea levels and temperatures
UK coastal waters have warmed by about 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past three
decades. Also, the average sea level around the UK is now about 10 cm higher
than it was in 1900. Globally, the sea level could rise by 18 to 59 cm by
the end of the century. Rising sea levels would swamp some small, low-lying
island states and put millions of people in all low-lying areas at risk of
flooding.
Extreme weather
Since rain records began in 1766, the amount of winter rainfall in England
and Wales has risen, and over the last 45 years it has also become heavier.
The autumn and winter floods in 2000 in the UK were the worst for 270 years
in some areas, and flood damage now costs the UK about £1 billion a year.
Globally, climate change means that extreme weather events, such as floods,
droughts and tropical storms, will become more frequent and more dangerous.
Plants and animals
There are already changes to the way plants and animals live in this country.
The period between spring and autumn when plants grow is now a month longer
in central England than it was in 1900.
Further changes in rainfall and temperature will affect many animal and plant
species around the world. Some species might be unable to adapt quickly enough,
and habitats might not be available for them to move into. If global temperatures
rise by two degrees Celsius, 30 per cent of all land-living species will be
threatened by an increased risk of extinction.
The rising cost
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) estimates that the increased cost
to UK households due to extreme weather events will be up to four per cent
extra each year.
The economic costs of climate change are expected to be huge, as indicated
in the recent Stern report on the economics of climate change. The report
estimates that not taking action could cost from five to 20 per cent of global
GDP every year, now and forever. In comparison, the cost of reducing emissions
to avoid the worst impacts of climate change can be limited to around one
per cent of global GDP each year.
Food and water
As temperatures increase and rainfall patterns change, crop yields are expected
to drop significantly in Africa, the Middle East and India.
Water availability for irrigation and drinking will be less predictable because
there will be more variable rain, and salt from rising sea levels may contaminate
underground fresh water supplies in coastal areas. Droughts are likely to
be more frequent. Up to three billion more people could suffer increased water
shortages by 2080.
Disease
With rising temperatures, diseases such as malaria, West Nile disease, dengue
fever and river blindness will shift to different areas. It is predicted that
290 million additional people could be exposed to malaria by the 2080s.
Rainforests
Large areas of Brazilian and central African rainforest could be lost if climate
change results in significant reductions in rainfall in these areas – and
this would be on top of the forest already being cut down to clear land for
agriculture. These forests currently absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide
which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
So is it all doom & gloom and
what can we do about it?
It may seem that individually we cannot influence the big picture, but collectively
we can; it is primarily by the collective effect of all our individual efforts
that we can make a difference. For example; nine out of ten people in the
UK now participate to some degree in recycling domestic waste. We are increasingly
becoming “energy aware”; using low
energy light bulbs, insulating our houses, switching off PCs and TVs when
not in use and upgrading gas boilers. A small, but growing number of UK households
are also reducing their conventional energy intake by using alternative sources
such as: solar
energy, wind
energy and ground
source heat pumps.
Of course, one of the biggest energy consumers and polluters is the motor car. This is an area of our lives where most of us are reluctant to make changes since this feels like an assault on our liberty. Driving to work consumes huge amounts of energy and produces vast quantities of CO2. Since the Industrial Revolution, there has been a compelling logic behind congregating at a place of employment; primarily along the lines “this is where the work takes place”. The advent of widely available Broadband across most of the UK now means that for many types of work (particularly office-based work); the old logic no longer applies. A new Revolution is starting to happen.
It is now possible to work highly effectively from home and meet centrally only when necessary, perhaps once per week. Good quality Broadband allows home workers to be linked via their computers to all the centralised office systems, just as if they were at a desk in the office. Equally, the telephones can all be linked via VoIP. This means that the telephones function in exactly the same way as they do when all on a single centralised site, with familiar 3-digit extension dialling between them at no cost.
The opportunities that this opens up across the UK (and the world) are truly exciting! There is no reason why in the UK a large percentage of businesses could not operate in this way. Measured in terms of carbon footprint, the saving just from reducing the number of car journeys, amounts to millions of tonnes of CO2 every year. Then of course, there are the financial savings on reducing the amount of office space and car mileage. Not only this, but the impact of sitting in traffic queues and driving for hours every day is a major stress factor and this is eliminated. This inevitably enhances staff effectiveness and productivity.
All of these are positive changes that will increase company profits. So “Going Green” far from being an airy fairy idea about saving the planet, also has a sound commercial basis.
To close this article, we have included a practical example from our experience of a Business that has taken this approach:
French Property Shop
“French
Property Shop” provides English speakers from around the world with
expert guidance enabling them to purchase properties in France, with the security
of local French expertise.
FPS has over 17 years of experience in this field and has been based in Ashford,
Kent for the last six years with a team of specialist French speaking staff,
all of whom have been driving between 10 and 80 miles a day to get to the
office at a cost of up to £700
per month each. This burden has lead to some former colleagues to pursue alternative
careers and certainly produced staff retention problems. The carbon
footprint purely from driving to and from work is estimated at 6.3 tonnes
per person per year. The additional costs of a conventional office (rent,
rates, etc) when combined with a growing awareness of of the ecological
impact, made FPS start to consider the alternatives to all driving to
a central office.
David Todd (Managing Director) says:
“Our search for practical and cost-effective alternatives led us to
EOS Communications. EOS professionally reviewed our situation and discussed
what we wanted to achieve. In clear, easy to understand language they explained
the best options available to enable us to close the central office and set
up all the employees as home-workers, with business quality broadband to run
PCs and phones, using the Hermes
hosted VoIP telephone system.
In summary, Hermes gives
us all the features of a big office telephone system, including call forwarding
between the phones and free calls between all sites and much lower call costs
for external calls to the UK and France.
As a business, this means that we have benefited in several ways:
1) Reduced Costs
- No leasing costs of a central office
- Telephone costs are lower
2) Improved Staff Productivity
- An average of two hours driving removed every day
- No petrol or other motoring costs
- Net result, happier and less stressed staff
All of which contributes to increased profits and we have genuinely reduced our carbon footprint at the same time!”
Acknowledgements and useful links:
Global
Warming - Wikipedia
Climate
Change - Directgov (the UK government website)
Greener
living, a quick guide - Directgov
Carbon
footprint calculator (Google)
Carbon
footprint calculator (UK Government)
Wind Energy
