Businesses looking to tackle climate change challenges are being offered a helping hand by the University of East Anglia.

The university has secured funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to run a programme of activities that will help organisations develop strategies to reduce their carbon footprints and assist them with the integration of these strategies into their business models.

The programme will include masterclasses and seminars with up to 20 days of academic consultancy. This will include the production of carbon-reduction action plans for the collaborating businesses.

There will also be expertise from the school of environmental sciences, which will audit current activity and measure the carbon impact of the business. It will then develop the tools required to address the findings.

Prof Nikos Tzokas, head of Norwich Business School, said: “A wide range of factors influence an organisation's ability to react to new challenges.

“We believe we have developed a programme that will go beyond a short-term knee-jerk reaction to climate change, and which will deliver long-term sustainable benefits to the partner organisations.

“We'll do this by providing technical support together with the management support required to tackle the problems around cultural change and the barriers that exist to adopting new strategies and innovation.”

The programme - Low-carbon Competitive Solutions: Enabling Sustainable Behavioural Change - is available for four businesses, which are asked to contribute £2,000 to the project. This will obtain technical and change management advice worth more than £10,000. Cash prizes are available to businesses which demonstrate the greatest impact following the programme.

To find out more, call Sophia Bates on 01603 591399, e-mail creativecarbonsolutions@uea.ac.uk or visit www.uea/nbs/ccs

Courtesy of EDP