How your business can get on the path to sustainability 

Sensis has also recently launched a book called ‘Small Business Big Opportunity: Sustainable Growth’ to help businesses benefit from reducing their impact on the environment. The author, NSW Australian of the Year for 2010 Jon Dee has been one of Australia's most influential figures on environmental issues.

The book contains some information and tips to help your business save money and be more efficient. It also outlines how you could gain a competitive edge by showing leadership in the area of environmental sustainability with your business.  

June 2010 Sensis®  Business Index – special feature included on Sustainability 

Sensis releases each quarter a business survey titled Sensis® Business Index, which  provides the latest snapshot of small (1-19 employees) and medium enterprise (up to 199 employees) business activity in Australia.  It is based on a sample size of approximately 1,800 businesses from metropolitan and regional areas, interviewed between 6 May and 3 June 2010.  The August/September quarter report should be released at the end of this month.  Some of the key insights from the June report indicates: 

•        No 1 concern for SMEs followed by economic climate, and cash flow, paperwork and bureaucracy; 
•  29% of SMEs reported facing no problems in their business, down seven percentage point in the past quarter;
•         Medium sized businesses (20-200 employees) held much more positive views on the current state of the economy and where it was headed in the future; regional businesses were also more confident than their metropolitan counterparts;
•         The highest business confidence has been recorded in the heath and community services and also  the strongest improvement in all indicators except prices
•         Finance and insurance sector recorded the strongest expectations for sales in the coming quarter and heath and community recording highest profit expectations;
•         Retail trade was least likely to expect increases in sales, employment, profitability and capital expenditure in the next quarter.
•         Queensland and South Australia reported increases in the proportion of exporting SMEs; and the Australian Capital Territory reported the highest actual exporting in Australia in the last quarter. Further to this, exporting SMEs reported growth in value of exports and expect this to continue.
•         In NSW businesses are expecting some improvement in trading conditions over the next three months. For the coming quarter improvements are expected by SMEs in sales value, size of workforce, wages bill, and profitability.
•         The top three sustainability concerns are Climate Change, Cost of Energy and Water Shortages. The report further details changes being made by SMEs to address environmental concerns which includes introducing recycling, reducing energy usage and water usage and installing energy efficient globes. SMEs are also introducing new green products.


You can download these publications at http://about.sensis.com.au/small-business/