On the last day of the Sustainable Living Festival I sat near the Yarra River with a friend I had not seen in four years. We had a wonderful time and suddenly she spotted a bike in the water.

Rubbish! How could anyone do that? It was probably stolen, too. Just dumped into this pristine nature (well, pretty clean anyway).

So I got it out.

And what wonder it was. It could not have been in there for too long, the wheels were still turning. But it was full of life.

Lots of tiny water plants and shells were growing on the discarded bike. It actually looked really beautiful. And in the evening sunlight it was almost like a piece of art.

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Alexander

One of the organisations on my list is ecoBiz, a government run consultancy service that helps businesses implement sustainability in 3 areas: Energy, Waste and Water.

They facilitate a 6 step process:

1. Company applies to join ecoBiz
2. Company develops baseline to compare eco-efficiency improvement against
3. Site survey to identify opportunities for positive ecological impact
4. Development of action plan of how to implement these solutions
5. Implementation (There is also the potential of a rebate of up to 30% of the investment)
6. Reassessment (after one year) to assess the savings.

No overall financial analysis available

I asked Michelle Olivier whether they had statistics on the financial impact on businesses. It would help figure out whether sustainable solutions bring a positive financial return. Due to their workload and staff shortages, she does not have these figures and is not planning to develop them either.

So answer here to my question: Are sustainable solutions more competitive than their “traditional” counterparts.

Sustainability involves Action

What their website did remind me off is that a change in actions is essential to achieve reduced impact on the environment. Reduce, re-use, recycle, switch off lights, etc.

So I am sure how far I get with my goal to improve the convenience. After all, this whole process ties up some internal resources (even though there is the payback of additional motivation).

On their website, they publish their complete toolbox for anyone to use. This includes detailed Excel spreadsheets to work out the financial and ecological impact. It also gives may ideas of what actions can be taken in each of the 3 areas (water, waste, energy).
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