There's never been a better time to go green

We're all becoming more aware of the impact we have on the environment. So is being green good for business?  Can it actually impact your bottom line? Or is it just something that large companies who’ve got large corporate social responsibility (CSR) budgets, should be taking care of? After all becoming greener is bound to cost more money. Right?

Wrong.

Not greening the way you work may be costing you money – and that’s not just because of the energy you waste or the materials you throw away. With environmental expectations growing and stakeholder pressure increasing, working with like-minded businesses will be essential, therefore not changing the way you work may well cost you business. So what can you do?

There are lots of things businesses can do – from changing light bulbs and recycling office paper, to investing in an energy efficient heating system, but one area that’s often overlooked is the environmental impact of marketing.

Raincoat, one of the leading environmentally aware design and marketing agencies, has worked with organisations and brands like WRAP, Recycle Now, Ecotricity and Sita to help them promote the work they do in the most responsible way possible.

Nick Kenyon, managing partner of Raincoat explains, “We know through national research that’s been carried out throughout the SME community, that most people and businesses recognise they have a responsibility to reduce their environmental footprint. Considering the impact that marketing material has, and looking at alternative methods and processes, is a great way to start and a very positive step towards making a real difference.”

Nick explains further, “Although we’re well known in the environmental sector we do work with other businesses such as Orange, Hewlett Packard and a whole host of not-for-profit organisations. It’s as much our job to make sure that the marketing support we provide any client – whether it’s a simple piece of printed material or a full-blown campaign is as green as it is creative. This also supports our clients’ CSR policies and helps them move towards a ‘greener’ business!”

With businesses producing almost twice as much of the UK’s carbon emissions as households, it’s never been a more important time to start changing the way we do things. If you would like to discuss how Raincoat can help support your environmental efforts, call 01761 233 200 or if you would like a copy of their free whitepaper which discusses the issues around greener marketing, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Spammers poised to target BlackBerry and iPhone owners

The rising popularity of smartphones such as the BlackBerry and the iPhone will make them targets for viruses and spam, security experts believe.
In the past few years the internet has experienced a huge rise in security problems, led by criminal gangs who have used spam and viruses for financial scams. Mobile phones have remained relatively unscathed, but that is set to change as sales of smartphones surge.


In the first three months of this year 32.2 million smartphones were sold - 11 per cent of all handset sales and a 29 per cent increase on the same period last year.


These e-mail and internet-enabled handsets are moving out of the corporate market into consumers' hands, and the recent launch of the 3G iPhone is expected to fuel sales further. Credit Suisse analysts predict that 275 million smartphones will be sold next year, boosting penetration to 19 per cent and making the mobile world attractive to criminals.

Neil Cook, vice-president of technology services for Cloudmark, a messaging security company, estimates that penetration of smartphones needs to reach 20 per cent to 30 per cent before it becomes worthwhile for hackers to spread viruses. Spam is a problem in India and China, and North America and Europe are expected to follow.


Mr Cook said that the rise in spamming and scams boils down to economics. “Spammers are really very good businessmen,” he said. “They see new opportunities and new markets. As new media becomes attractive to spammers, they move in there. They will move anywhere if they can make a return on investment.”


Another attraction for spammers is that mobiles are quickly outgrowing the number of computers. Gartner, the industry analyst, forecasts that there will be four billion mobiles compared with 1.3 billion computers by 2010. Mobile spam is rampant in China, where it is much cheaper to send texts and fewer people have computers, Mr Cook said. Others are more sceptical. Sending 100,000 spam e-mails costs only a few dollars, which is significantly cheaper than texting, Carole Theriault, senior security consultant for Sophos, a computer security company, said.

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