Following the results of a survey into the attitudes of small businesses towards the environment, NetRegs is urging farmers and horticultural businesses to visit

www.netregs.gov.uk to find out about their environmental obligations and how to comply.

NetRegs, the government website that provides clear guidance on environmental regulations, commissioned the YouGov survey, which found that small business owners in the UK are becoming increasingly concerned about the environment.

NetRegs provides an easy-to-use navigation menu and search mechanism on its website, where users can find guidance whatever their business. To keep up to date, businesses can register on NetRegs to receive regular email updates about changes to environmental legislation.

The survey found that nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) of the small- and medium-sized enterprises polled believe good environmental practice is important to small businesses, and nearly four fifths (79 per cent) know more about environmental issues than they did five years ago.

Respondents in the agricultural industry identified waste disposal as a real area of concern for the industry, with more than 84 per cent highlighting it as a problem, and less than 62 per cent feel confident they know enough about waste disposal.

However, when it comes to environmental regulations that affect their industry specifically, farmers and agricultural businesses are better informed than many of their counterparts in other sectors. The survey found respondents working in agriculture are much more likely to be aware of environmental regulations that affect their business compared with those working in other industries - nearly two thirds (60 per cent) in construction, less than half (45 per cent) in manufacturing and just over a third (36 per cent) of small businesses across all sectors.

A total of 86 per cent of small businesses across all sectors say it is important to comply with environmental regulations by disposing of waste in an environmentally friendly manner. Furthermore, the results show small businesses are also keen for those they work with to comply with environmental regulations.

The same number feel it is important that the contractors they employ dispose of waste properly, although nearly two-thirds admit they would not always check to make sure that they actually do. Nevertheless, more than half (53 per cent) would rather employ a contractor who complies with environmental legislation than one who does not - even if it costs more to do so.

“This research shows that small businesses are taking their environmental responsibilities seriously, and what’s more they expect the businesses they work with to do the same,” said Richard Martin, NetRegs programme manager. “We know farmers and horticultural businesses across the country are working hard to make their operations safer and cleaner. But too many are still unaware that NetRegs gives them the information and guidance they need to clean up their business practices and meet their environmental obligations.”

A waste directory on the NetRegs website provides details of local waste management sites, so users can be sure they are working with licensed operators.

It also enables users to select recycling in preference to disposal facilities.

GREEN COMPUTERS

Userful Corporation has announced that in the last year its software, DiscoverStation, has saved more than 13,250 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions - the equivalent of taking 2,300 cars off the road.

DiscoverStation allows up to 10 people to work from one standard PC and lets a company manage and multiply its desktops through a central web portal. The findings from the year-long trial were based on 526kWh/PC/year for operation; 1818 kWh/PC for production; electricity generated at 1.55 lbs of CO2/kWh; and 11,560 lbs of CO2 per car per year.

The new software was designed to combat the fact that modern desktop computers sit idle virtually the entire day, while the users read or type. DiscoverStation leverages this unused computing power to create an environmentally efficient alternative to traditional desktop computing. Multiple users can work on a single computer by simply attaching extra monitors, mice and keyboards.

“Computer hardware production and disposal is one of the fastest-growing threats to our environment. Powering and cooling computers is an increasing contributor to global warming. By leveraging the under-used power of modern PCs, DiscoverStation helps people around the world go green,” said Timothy Griffin, president of Userful.

DiscoverStations have been deployed around the world with a typical configuration of six stations per computer. Reducing the number of computers in use has additional earth-friendly benefits. Electronic waste is an increasing problem globally. DiscoverStation can reduce electronic waste by up to 80 per cent, lowering the carbon footprint even more. For further information visit http://userful.com/greenpc

ANGLIA JOINS CLUB

Anglia Business Solutions recently received recognition from Microsoft for outstanding customer commitment and sales achievement, and was added to the Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club.

This recognition honours Microsoft Dynamics’ reselling partners, whose commitment to customers is reflected in their business performance and high level of sales achievement and customer satisfaction.

“Anglia truly understands how important customers are to Microsoft and makes the extra effort to make their customers’ experiences memorable,” said Tami Reller, corporate vice-president at Microsoft.

“The President’s Club is the latest in a list of recent accolades gained by the company in recognition of the excellent solutions deployed by our people working in partnership with our customers,” said David Hurley.

“It is a well-deserved tribute to their innovation, skills and dedication, which is one of the main reasons why the company is experiencing unprecedented growth in revenue and profitability.”

Anglia will also be supporting the Fresh Produce Consortium’s (FPC) annual dinner, in its 62nd year, as this year’s primary sponsor. Anglia will join the 2008 guest nation Egypt for the dinner, which will take place on February 2 at the newly refurbished Intercontinental London, Park Lane.

WHAT LIES AHEAD? MICROSOFT UNVEILS FUTURE

In this month’s column, Anglia Business Solutions’ David Hurley outlines the key developments that arose from the Microsoft worldwide partner conference, and what implications they could have for the future of the industry.

More than 10,000 people flocked to Denver for the latest Microsoft worldwide partner conference. This annual event is a must for partners to attend to assess the latest market trends and new products from Microsoft. The following is a brief summary of some of the highlights.

Microsoft released more new products last year than in the past five, and the pace will continue to accelerate during the next year. We are now seeing the results of the software giant’s $7 billion (£3.4bn) annual investment in research and development. The company has just announced another sparkling set of results, and the over-arching message was that the IT industry will be busy rewiring the economy and transferring many paper-based applications on to electronic media. Microsoft’s new products will play a key role in this.

They will include new releases of products across all aspects of their business sectors, from infrastructure to the home market. The key ones include Windows Server 2008, SQL 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and the new release of Dynamics NAV Version 5.1. The first three are major releases of these products, which are due to launch on February 27, 2008.

However, they also announced a new low-end Dynamics NAV-based product called Entrepreneur, aimed specifically at the Sage market sector. They would have appeared to put considerable thought into this product, by making it extremely easy to deploy and use. It has also been priced very aggressively. The limitation is that it can only cope with up to five concurrent users and has limited supply chain capabilities.

Entrepreneur can easily be upgraded to the full Dynamics NAV solution as the company expands. It would therefore provide the ideal entry-level solution for smaller organisations wishing to automate their financial applications prior to upgrading to the full Dynamics NAV supply chain scenario. The Entrepreneur application is expected to be released in the UK within a few months.

One of the emerging trends that was highlighted as a pointer to the future was what they called “Software + Services”. Their first target is to take on Salesforce.com, the market leader that is already sold as a hosted service. This will be tackled by the Microsoft CRM Live solution.

The next big move in this area is going to be Office Live. This is where instead of purchasing Office as a product, it will be sold as a service. The hosting will be either through partners, service providers or Microsoft. This is a new business model that will become the new way to consume software in the future.

The prediction is that over the next five years, the business management systems market will go the same way. It is therefore perfectly feasible that customers will in the future operate software on a pay-as-you-go basis, rather than purchasing licences and infrastructure solutions. Once again, there is a long way to go before it becomes standard practice. However, it is a taste of things to come and will inevitably happen as the trend becomes established with other applications.

Among the new products previewed were the new virtualisation facilities based on the Windows 2008 platform, a product called Silverlight that wowed the audiences, and some add-on solutions to the Dynamics range of products that will add huge value to the products. Some of these add-ons are quite extraordinary in their power and would beg the question of why any new company evaluating replacement systems would consider anything else. These will be due to appear on the market during the coming three to six months.

These were just a few of the highlights of a very informative conference. Anglia qualified for the Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club at the event. The company was also short-listed for Global Microsoft Dynamics Partner of the Year at the event, but lost out on the night. Maybe next year...