There is not one country in the world that is not experiencing first-hand, the effects of climate change. As CO2 levels increase in our atmosphere, extreme weather patterns have become the norm.

Just look at the devastating wildfires ravaging Australian, the catastrophic floods in Indonesia and even more locally in Yorkshire, Nottingham and Lincolnshire, business as usual is not an option for them.

In fact, one of our most esteemed naturalists and environmental champions, Sir David Attenborough, has warned that "the moment of crisis has come" and "life-or-death decisions" must be made now to tackle climate change.

He argues that we know how to do it and the irony is, that we are declining to take the steps that we know have to be taken.

Every business big and small causes carbon emissions, which further adds to the greenhouse effect. A companies’ carbon footprint is the best estimate of the total amount of carbon emissions produced to directly and indirectly operate that business.

Reducing your carbon footprint can play a key part in your sustainability and Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy, whilst enabling your to do your bit for global climate change.

Manufacturing and construction companies will need to assess the carbon emissions created in their production processes and whether it would be more environmentally beneficial to use local, recycled waste materials in their construction and packaging methods as opposed to virgin materials.

Service-based businesses should investigate their daily operations to understand how they are impacting the environment.

Businesses must think creatively about how they can reduce their overall carbon footprint; a myriad of small changes can have a cumulative impact on carbon reduction.

The onus is on board members to take the lead to commit to prioritising sustainability for the entire company. This means addressing wasteful behaviour and implementing technology upgrades where at all possible. Knowing and monitoring your carbon emissions will be as important as any other KPI’s in your business.

By implementing an energy audit of their premises and processes, business owners will save energy, reduce costs and make some big wins:

· Energy efficiency – check your bills to understand your company’s consumption habits and then set targets to lower that consumption. This includes considering what products or raw material you buy, can they be replaced with recycled or reuse products?

· Small changes can make a big impact, for example switching off appliances rather than leaving them on sleep mode. Using energy efficient lighting with automatic switch offs. Motion sensor lighting will ensure that lights automatically switch off when they are not required.

· Fossil fuels could be replaced with renewable energy or switching to cleaner energy providers.

· Reduce printing, but if necessary, use double sided printing options.

· Reduce your usage of paper, which is responsible for 3.1% of Europe’s energy consumption and use recycled and sustainably sourced stationary where possible. Most companies store their data in cloud computing systems. It’s way more convenient and it means that employees can access documents from their laptops and smartphones remotely, at any time.

· Cloud computing means that employees can work remotely, without having to commute, which has a big role to play in reducing pollution.

· Business travel, especially flights can contribute to over half of a company’s carbon emissions. Where possible hold meetings over Skype or video conferencing instead, it can make a big difference to your carbon footprint and your bottom line.

· Switch to low emission or electric vehicles. Electric cars are cheaper than petrol or diesel cars per mile, are less expensive to maintain and there are tax incentives available to encourage you to switch. Natural gas is an alternative

fuel with strong potential for trucks, currently being adopted by Scania, Volvo and Iveco.

· Invest in good waste management facilities – it is a big challenge for business but ensure recycling facilities are clearly visible with separate bins for different types of waste materials.

· Make sure food waste bins are available in kitchens and staff restaurants. Ensure employees are aware of the food waste policy and provide them with adequate facilities so that their food waste can be properly disposed of.

· Remove plastic cutlery and straws form canteens, it reduces waste production and reduces disposal costs. Encourage employees to use reusable cups instead of one-off plastic ones.

· Ensure the office space is insulated and make sure temperature controls are correctly timed and regularly maintained.

· Engage employees to help recycle, appoint company champions and run initiatives to help create discussions and new ideas that could be implemented.

· All unavoidable carbon emissions should be calculated and offset by a carbon offset project, like planting trees or investing in projects that reduce emissions, elsewhere in the world.

Many businesses have made serious commitments to address their own actions and support climate friendly policies and without voluntary business action, reducing carbon emissions would be much more difficult.

Within the Waste Management sector, we have to adapt to both global and local challenges all the time. The process of managing waste has become much more sophisticated in recent years and there is so much more innovation coming down the line.

Recyclates and waste derived fuels have developed as exports in recent years and have been very important in helping local councils meet their recovery and recycling targets, as well as their landfill diversion targets.

However, within the domestic market there are massive opportunities to develop certain areas within the recycling and reprocessing industry, in order to reclaim these recyclates and provide further jobs and value to the economy.

The export of waste is a valuable transaction to the UK economy, boosting the balance of payments and supplying manufacturing economies overseas, which in turn provides us with valuable import products such as white goods, electronics and clothing.

There is scope however for developing a range of domestic recycling and reprocessing facilities, so that the supply chain can be re-shored. Re-Gen Waste has

a number of strategic initiatives currently in planning to complete the step from processing raw material to manufacturing products for the domestic market.

We also recently invested £5m in producing a high specification replacement fuel for traditional fossil fuels, for use in cement kilns and power stations.

Household waste that cannot be recycled and historically ended up in landfills is prepared and transformed into solid recovered fuel (SRF), which is exported to Waste to Energy (WtE) plants in Europe, where it is incinerated to generate electricity for home heating.

There is no reason why heavy industry in Northern Ireland could not benefit by replacing fossil fuels with Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) and reducing its carbon footprint immediately.

Putting household waste to work at home, will involve a united forward thinking drive from industry itself but by doing so, we can reduce our carbon emissions significantly and make our economy more competitive, through sustainable production and resource efficiency.