Going green falls foul of the recession, says Environment Agency

The majority of businesses plan to cut back investment in energy and water efficiency measures to save money during the recession, a survey by the Environment Agency has found.

By Richard Tyler Last Updated: 6:38PM GMT 12 Jan 2009

Some 55pc of those polled said that short term cash demands outweighed the need to experiment with new environmental initiatives.
Water efficiency appeared to have fallen the furthest down the list of priorities with only 10pc of firms placing water above energy efficiency.
The Environment Agency, which has just launched its water efficiency awards, said that a single dripping tap could add up to more than £900 in water and treatment costs.
Hotel and restaurant owners are in the agency's sights, with 40pc reporting that they have no water saving measures in place at all. The agency said it had research that indicated that such businesses waste up to half the water they use.
The survey found that those firms in areas of the country seen as short of water were the least likely to be trying to conserve water.
Almost three quarters of those in the South East did not have formal policies on water and energy efficiency, the agency said, compared with 61pc that did in Wales.
One such business is Jeremy Thorne's drive-through car wash and valeting firm Pitstop. Based in Swansea, one of the wettest cities in the UK, Mr Thorne was fully aware of the cost of water on his business. Not only is it his third major outlay, after property and staff costs – he employs eight people – but when it rains demand for his services falls.
"My business is very, very much affected by the weather. The rain cuts my business down dramatically. If I do 100 cars when it's sunny, I'll do 20 if it rains," he said.
At the time his water bill was £7,500 a year even though he was cutting corners. "We were doing what we should not have been doing. We were getting the water and shoving it down the drain," Mr Thorne said.
Mr Thorne decided to try to reduce his costs and came across the idea of installing a reed-based water recycling system while watching a programme on the History Channel about the way that the water from the Colorado River is filtered as it is channelled into Los Angeles.
Pitstop's mini-version sees the water from washing the vehicles seep into a tank where it settles. The water is then pumped into another tank and passed through the reed bed, where the bacteria living on the reeds breaks down the solid waste in the water. It is then pumped into a third tank for reuse in the car wash.
The system is efficient. "We actually found we were using less electricity than we did when we were pumping the water into the drains," he said.
"What we really wanted to do is save money. We looked at our business and realised that we could save a great deal of money by looking at what we did. I began to realise that I had all these different chemicals and solutions for cleaning cars. You get lazy in business and use the same things that you did the year before. When we analysed the products we realised that we used products that were harmful to the environment and expensive as well."
The investment cost £15,000 and the firm has now cut its water bill by 85pc. "I paid for it in the first two years. I was quite shocked how much you expenditure is on water," he said.
•HM Revenue and Customs has said that rainwater harvesting equipment is among the list of equipment that qualify for 100pc first year tax allowances. The full list can be found at: www.eca-water.gov.uk
www.water-efficiency-awards.org.uk