It "pays to go green" for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) say industry experts.

Envirowise, which gives free, confidential advice to UK businesses in order to enable companies to increase profitability and reduce their environmental impact, has said that implementing energy efficient strategies will save businesses money.

Dr Martin Gibson, programme director for Envirowise, claimed that the level of awareness of this issue amongst SMEs was "high" with 79 per cent believing it to be important.

However, he added: "There is still a bit of a misconception out there that it costs to go green. [Yet], financial savings will always accompany improved environmental performance."

"Through reduced resource use - be it paper, water or materials in products, and at the same time, there are many low or zero cost options that companies can take - up to 85 per cent of environmental initiatives do not cost anything at all - just think of printing double-sided. That one small step alone saved a training consultancy £40,000."

Transport was also highlighted as an "increasingly important issue" for businesses, as was IT and computing.

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