Glasgow Business Growth Programme, Green Business Support
City-centre based Architectural design consultants, Austin-Smith:Lord applied for support for the above programme in Summer 2023. One of their key principles is sustainability – ‘respecting the people, place and the planet for the benefit of future generations by integrating circular and sustainable design’. Working closely on their application with Catherine Cosgrove, an Associate of ASL, and their Sustainability Specialist. The support was provided by Connect Three Solutions Ltd, who are based in Bridgeton. Catherine’s review notes are included below.
‘Under the Glasgow City Council Business Growth Programme, Austin-Smith:Lord were awarded three days of support from the Green Business Growth Project Fund in August 2023. It allowed us to work with an external consultant to look at how our business runs and how we could place our environmental impact at the heart of everything we do. Over the last fifteen years, we have focused on reducing our environmental impact and have achieved significant savings in energy and resource use but knew that any further improvements would be more difficult to achieve.
We found the process incredibly valuable as it helped us look at every aspect of our business, from the structure and organization through to our suppliers and client base. Our consultant, Connect Three, introduced us to the BCorp movement and helped us create an initial business assessment. We were surprised to learn how well we were scoring and that achieving this certification was possible. It not only helped us to understand what environmental and business improvements we could make but also what social benefit we could create at the same time. This process has given us many ideas on how we can develop our business over the next few years and we are already in discussion with our clients about how we can incorporate these into current projects. Our initial commitments are to submit our formal BCorp application this year and to be a Net Zero emissions company by 2030. Meeting these aims will transform our business and our environmental impact.
Throughout this process, Paul Craig, our business adviser in Glasgow City Council, has been very supportive and an invaluable source of advice. We’ve felt that we are part of something that’s bigger than us and that we could really make a difference to the city by working together. We are happy to share our experiences of this project with other businesses and encourage them to apply for support from the Glasgow Business Growth Programme’.
