What is Efficiency through Sustainability?
Efficiency through Sustainability is a one year funded project aimed at assisting local supply chains to become more resource efficient in terms of saving carbon and other raw materials. The project also hopes to realise that businesses can increase their profits by cutting material costs and developing a new niche for goods and services in the market.  The Project has been part funded by the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste Centre for Local Authorities and will run from April 2009 until April 2010. This project will help businesses to reduce their carbon emissions, waste to landfill and water consumption as well as increasing profit / realising savings.

Who’s Involved?
Devon County Council, the Environment Agency, Devon and Cornwall Police, Teignbridge District Council, University of Exeter and Exeter City Council are all participating in the project and have identified a number of their suppliers who may wish to participate. Due to the short timescales of the project this initial pilot will focus on supply chains in the food and beverage, paper and print and construction sectors.

Why join in?
Expert help is being offered by Global Action Plan who will run a series of free workshops and some on-site assistance to help businesses identify and realise savings through becoming more efficient. The workshops will also provide an opportunity for businesses to network and meet the buyer (please note all public sector partners will be represented at the workshops).

What Happens after April 2010?
Although the pilot project is only set to run until April 2010 it fits within Local Area Agreement 6. The outcomes for LAA 6 are:

Developing sustainable procurement by driving a Low Carbon local supply chain – Working with Devon Strategic Partnership partners, their procurement teams and with the Devon businesses involved in their supply chain to reduce the carbon impact of the supply chain, (their services & businesses) and increase expenditure in the local economy (through increased local business expenditure).