Businesses gather to celebrate Go Green
More than 80 businesses met last week at The Bristol Hotel for the Go Green Business Breakfast to learn what they could do to play their part in Bristol’s year as European Green Capital.
Taking place on the final day of the Business Green Week, the event deliberately coincided with Bristol’s BIG Green Week. It provided a place for businesses to meet, learn and share experiences on green business practice.
The initiative was first launched in 2014 that encourages businesses to run green activities in their workplace for one week in June.
Over 40 businesses took part this year, running in-house activities ranging from locally sourced picnics in the park to low energy days, all designed to help engage staff in the benefits of going green.
Delegates heard from Clifton-based architects Stride Treglown who showed a video of their ingenious ‘Top Gear style’ race from Temple Meads to their Clifton office which made headlines last week as they set out on a fun quest to explore the best way to commute to work in Bristol.
Other businesses shared their experiences of Business Green Week as well, which included running clothes swap events, screening films and documentaries during lunchtimes, sports competitions, and providing bee friendly plants for all their staff to plant outside the office.
Nina Skubala, Go Green Programme Co-Director said:
“We have been running Green Weeks at Business West for a few years now, so are well aware of the challenges facing businesses in trying to get ideas for sustainable initiatives off the ground.
But it’s fantastic to see how many businesses have come on board with Business Green Week this year, all bringing such creativity to the table.”
Rachel Quinn, Senior Environmental Advisor from Skanska UK said:
“As an official partner of Bristol 2015, this was a fantastic opportunity to be able to showcase some of the work we have been doing in the region over the last 10 years to help make Bristol a resilient city, and to talk about how we embed sustainability into our business.
“Go Green is a great way for us to share best practice and hear from others – we may be a global business, but we have been inspired by what some of the small businesses have done during Business Green Week.”
Go Green is run in partnership by Business West and Low Carbon South West.
This event served as a milestone half way through the Green Capital year and showed how much positive activity is taking place around the city.
To find out about future Go Green events and see the 200 businesses that have already signed up, visit Go Green.
Also check out what the businesses have been up to on Twitter: #BusinessGreenWeek
