Age
Thursday 11/11/2010 Page: 5
VICTORIA'S peak employment body is aiming to convince small and medium businesses it costs no more to be green. The Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry is running a pilot program, called Carbon Down, to show businesses they can chop an average of $850 a year off their electricity bill by shifting to a cheaper power plan with a 25% GreenPower component.
GreenPower is a government accreditation program for renewable energy sources such as sun, wind, water and waste. Kate Elborough, VECCI's manager of government programs, said Carbon Down was a free and independent cost-comparison service. "Effectively we do all the hard work", she said.
VECCI compared the power bills of 210 small and medium enterprises with available GreenPower plans for the six months between May and October. It found that businesses with average monthly power bills of more than $690 could save $1485 a year and prevent 70 tonnes of greenhouse gas being emitted into the atmosphere.
Those with a bill less than $690 a month would save $118 a year, or 6.3 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The general manager of manufacturer Unipod, Peter Sheehan, said his company had switched to a 10% GreenPower plan with AGL Energy and would save $21,000 a year.
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