The drive to make business activities more environmentally friendly was championed by the former Labour Government, who vowed to slash Britain’s carbon emissions. With a new administration in charge, companies in the UK are finding that green issues for business are no longer a pressing concern; in fact, austerity measures have ensured that survival is the primary objective for most businesses.
Notwithstanding the need to save money, no business should dispense with green aspirations and all firms should ensure that they are sufficiently protected from insurable losses.
A public liability insurance quote, for example, can be obtained at no cost and with minimal effort, but an uninsured public liability claim can ruin a business, regardless of its environmentally friendly ethos.
Managing Risk: Public liability insurance can be the last line of defence if a member of the public makes a claim against your business
Business greening remains every bit as important today as it did several years ago, when the drive to improve energy efficiency and conservation was at its peak. Whilst some businesses struggle to justify spending large amounts of cash on environmental initiatives, doing so can save a lot of money. Installing solar panels on office buildings, for instance, can reduce energy bills by generating free electricity from sunlight. The clean, renewable electricity can be used throughout the office and any surplus energy can be sold to the National Grid for a fixed rate under the feed-in tariffs.
Insulating lofts, ceilings and cavity walls reduces heat loss, meaning that boilers require less energy to maintain a comfortable temperature in the office. Simply turning down the thermostat in the office save a lot more energy than you’d probably imagine, while replacing standard light bulbs with energy efficient ones makes good savings too.
Of course, there are plenty of other green savings that can be made in the office and the point remains that greening everyday resources can help your business save money. Financial savings can be lost very easily, however, if a firm neglects to indemnify itself from the hazards of business. One of those hazards happens to be the lifeblood of most firms – the general public.
Unfortunately, no business can protect people from all types of harm.
Risk is a consequence of life and no company can eliminate all risks, but, according to Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, every employer in the UK is required “to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety”. In other words, every business must make an effort to protect members of the public from suffering injury or illness as a result of its activities.
Whilst this may seem relatively straightforward in theory, the practical limitations of protecting people from harm can be considerable. Sadly, accidents do sometimes happen and members of the public do sometimes suffer losses as a result of the activities of a business. For precisely this reason, every business in the UK must ensure that it is sufficiently protected from tortuous claims. Specifically, firms dealing with or among members of the public ought to take out public liability insurance as a matter of priority.
Public liability insurance can be the last line of defence if a member of the public makes a claim against your business.
Often providing cover of £5 million or more, public liability insurance is necessary for protecting business from legal action. Whilst public liability insurance cannot always prevent a business from being dragged through the courts, it can provide a financial remedy for claimants who have suffered injury, illness or loss as a result of the activities of the defendant business.
Being green is still important, therefore, but only in the context of environmental savings. No company ought to be so naïve and arrogant as to assume that public liability insurance is dispensable