With domestic demand greatly reduced and likely to fall further, exporting is the key to survival for most food and manufacturing industry in Ireland. However, exporters faces challenges when entering new markets, whether exporting to consumers or commercial and state bodies. Amongst these challenges are the so called ‘green credentials’ of the exporter and these includes such issues as packaging, carbon foot print, sustainability, environmental management systems and perhaps energy management systems.
The first step is to identify which, of these green issues is important in your market. For example, if exporting to the UK Public Sector, an environmental management system certified to ISO 14001 is essential. For the consumer market, again in the UK, 9 out of 10 households bought products with carbon labels and the total value of these purchases was €2.3 billion in 2010 (The Economist).
Whatever the green issues that are important in your export market Environmental Efficiency can help you step up to the challenge. For example, we have successfully implemented Environmental Management Systems for major exporters, some in as little as four months from start to certification. For some we have worked to identify their carbon footprint and how to reduce it. For others we have helped with eco-labelling and Life Cycle Analysis.
The good news is that Enterprise Ireland has a series of grants to help exporters tackle these issues and Environmental Efficiency has a long history of co-operation with Enterprise Ireland. Whatever your product, Environmental Efficiency can help you improve your green credentials and maximise the grant aid for the project.