The founder of a firm that helps businesses become more sustainable hopes new funding can fuel growth.
James Staniforth launched Sustainable Business Services two and a half years ago, offering firms help with reducing their environmental impact and making cost-effective use of resources. The consultancy now operates Newcastle and York bases and counts companies such as AV Dawson, Cleardata and Katmex among its customers.
Now £10,000 of funding from the North East Small Loan Fund, administered by NEL Fund Managers, aims to support hiring of new consultants in the hope of winning new clients across the country.
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Mr Staniforth said: "A commitment to sustainable business practices has become a mainstream part of the public and private sectors’ ways of working in recent years, to the point that many large businesses won’t allow supply chain companies to bid for work from them without knowing what they’re doing to mitigate their environmental impact. It’s easy to generate lots of data around this important issue, but without human insight into what it means on a practical basis and how it can be utilised to make positive changes to an organisation’s ways of working, it can essentially be meaningless.
"Adopting sustainable business practices can go hand-in-hand with commercial growth and we’ve seen lots of client securing cost and revenue benefits alongside the environmental improvements that we’re helping to deliver. With the climate emergency becoming more of a priority for everyone, we’re seeing interest in our services growing from businesses and organisations of all sizes and we’re building our resources to ensure we can provide the support and advice they need to achieve their objectives.
"Working locally is an important part of sustainable business practice, which the capital NEL makes available made possible for us, and the support we had from their team made obtaining this investment a straightforward experience."
The investment into Sustainable Business Services was made as part of NEL’s Net Zero Changemakers programme, which is designed to identify and support businesses in the North East Local Enterprise Partnership area that are creating or adapting products and services to benefit the low carbon agenda.
Jonathan Armitage, investment executive at NEL Fund Managers, said: "James and his team are applying their specialist knowledge to find practical solutions to their clients’ specific needs and demand for the services they offer is clearly only going to keep increasing. Low carbon and sustainable investment is one of the North East Fund’s main priorities, and we’re working to do as much as we can to support the progress and growth of innovative regional firms that are working in this field."
The £9m North East Small Loan Fund is part of the £120m North East Fund and offers loans of between £10,000 and £100,000 to firms in Tyne & Wear, Durham and Northumberland.
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