About the company: Scientific Pest Management Limited (SPM) is an SME pest control service provider, with about 30 employees including part-time workers.

So what's the problem? In early 2003, SPM was recommended by one of its major clients to join Project Acorn, a programme designed to help SMEs develop ISO 14001 environmental management systems (EMS) step by step. In order to ensure that they remained competitive SPM realised that they would have to create an environmental management system.

This was their solution. SPM put together an environmental committee to handle this challenge. One of the first jobs the committee took up was to establish how their business affected the environment.

Next they read up on legal and other requirements, and created internal guidelines for employees to follow and established a number of resource conservation targets to minimise the amount of resources wasted. By early 2004 SPM's environmental management system had been successfully developed.

After the environmental management system was up and running, SPM realised that little extra time was needed to keep it going. "All briefings and regular progress reviews are done in our existing system of daily frontline tool-box talk and monthly departmental meetings," said Even Lee, the Managing Director of Scientific Pest Management Limited. "We put effort into inspecting the progress of environmental improvement programmes and checking to see if there are new requirements SPM needs to follow, but the time needed for this is minimal."

SPM also uses every effort to educate and encourage frontline and junior staff to follow the established green practices. For instance, they put in place a penalty and reward system to encourage staff to be environmentally friendly in their day-to-day work.

Who gained from the project? SPM was able to lower electricity consumption by 12% through simple green office measures. Rationalising service routes led to a further 13% decrease in petrol fuel consumption. "In the past, we sent off our pest control team within one day of receiving a client's order and there was very little route planning," recalled Lee. "Nowadays we provide service within 3 days of receiving a client's order, and are able to plan our service schedule with fuel efficiency in mind."

Thanks to SPM's efforts at environmental management the company's large corporate clients are now convinced that this supplier will not tarnish their reputations by using banned or highly toxic pesticides. "Of course to some of our clients we had to first explain our rationale for the new fuel-conserving vehicle schedule," Lee explained. "But we were happy and actually a little surprised to find that all of them understood our position and were willing to cooperate."

Employees too have come to realise that the green measures can save costs, boost SPM's competitiveness, and create a healthy, safer working environment.

Looking back. SPM has overtaken competitors in keeping abreast of environmentally friendly pesticides in the market. "Nowadays big corporate clients usually ask questions about environmental performance when tendering new contracts. Being an environmentally-conscious service provider definitely gives us the competitive edge," Lee said.

"At first there was some resistance from workers in following the 'extra' green works practices," Lee said. "Clear guidelines, frequent mentioning of the company's commitment and the benefits are the key to create buy-in". Now workers at SPM seldom complain and green practices have become a part of everyday work. "Our employees understand that conserving the environment can bring about cost savings, a better relationship with clients, and business sustainability that leads to their own job security," Lee said, "Once they realise 'we are all in the same boat' they will remain committed."

Environmental guidelines are readily communicated through the daily frontline briefing before the pest control team sets off.