New course helps SMEs with EMS

Groundwork, the environmental regeneration organisation, in collaboration with the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), has devised an innovative new training programme aimed at enabling SMEs to develop their own environmental management systems.


The course – the first of its kind in the UK – has been developed with assistance from the European Social Fund GB, Staffordshire TEC, the Environment Agency and UK Waste Ltd. Currently being run by Groundwork Stoke-on-Trent for a second intake of delegates, it is hoped the Practical Environmental Management programme will serve as a blueprint for other similar initiatives around the country.

Especially designed for small and medium sized businesses of up to 250 employees, the programme entails 18 hours of tuition over a 2-3 month period.

A recent survey released by Groundwork illustrated that Britain’s SMEs did see the environment as one of the most important business issues facing them today. However, one quarter of the 300 companies surveyed for the report, ‘Small Firms and the Environment 1998’, were unable to name any environmental legislation or regulations directly affecting them.

Groundwork Stoke-on-Trent’s Karen Prole comments: “A huge majority of people charged with environmental responsibilities have no environmental training. The course provides competence, confidence and a friendly face of which to ask questions without the fear of going to prison.

Contact Karen Prole, tel: 01782 411000.

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