SWINDON businesses could save tens of thousands of pounds if environmental best practice were made standard, the Government's Environment Agency has announced.

According to a report which looks into how businesses can operate in more environmentally-friendly ways, the agency claims that UK companies as a whole could save between £2bn and £3 billion a year an estimate based on replicating gains made by 65 of the survey's case studies if measures to manage waste more effectively were adopted.

This amount, the report concludes, could double if savings from the cost of producing materials that end up as waste were included.

The estimate is based on savings made from good housekeeping most significantly, reducing waste disposal products, costs of wasted raw materials and reusing or selling recovered waste products.

The Environment Agency has therefore launched a new initiative called REWARD to promote the link between environmental protection and economic growth.

REWARD Regional and Welsh Appraisal of Resource Productivity and Development aims to encourage analysis of environmental pressures and current business practices, with a target of promoting increased productivity and profits as well as securing environmental goals.

Agency chairman Sir John Harman said: "Business by and large still see resource management and taxation as a threat, when in fact it is a tremendous opportunity."

This is a point of view which Neil Pullen of Swin-don-based Wiltshire Wildlife Trust fully supports.

He said: "If companies incorporate strategies such as biodiversity, there are gains to be made in terms of company image, staff morale and savings and costs.

"For instance, in terms of cost savings, an area of grassland religiously cut by contractors but which could be converted to a flower-rich meadow, saves on contractual obligations.

"And in terms of staff development and morale, involvement in a project to restore an overgrown, litter-strewn pond into an attractive, wildlife-friendly area staff can use can have lasting rewards."

On Monday there is a Busi-ness and Biodiversity seminar at Windmill Business Park. To book contact Neil on Swindon 526228.