Today, The Guardian Sustainable Business network and Accenture broadcast 12 hours of live debate from around the world, addressing key global challenges and setting the agenda for sustainable business.

So, obviously, the Planet Positive team were interested, and many of us were tuning in whilst working to hear the interesting debates and opinions coming through on sustainability. 

We were following the Twitter feed throughout the day of #sust24 (after #sustainability24 changed due to spammers!) from around the world, and enjoyed seeing the topic of sustainability trending…something that doesn’t happen enough. 

A huge number of topics were discussed from natural disasters and oil leaks and the effects they have had, the economic climate, how businesses are becoming more sustainable and the importance of social media to name just a few.

Business and government leaders from around the world including London, Stockholm, China and Rio, spoke about what is emerging for sustainable business across the world, and what can be expected from Rio+20, the much anticipated conference. 

The point I was really interested in was how social media can be used to spread the message of sustainability, and how it can help business. One point made that we here at Planet Positive really agreed with, is that social media should be used not to just talk about expansion and sustainable business, but actually use it as a tool for growth- something that was really emphasised at the Cloudforce event yesterday. 

We’re already putting in to practise and share a lot of the points made throughout the discussions, especially in terms of spreading the sustainability word. Our free campaign for SMEs, 7-days to Sustainability, is just one of the ways we’re doing this, and we hope that others have learnt as much from today as we did. 

We’re definitely going to take away some of the point from today’s broadcast, and you can see some interesting points made over Twitter here. 

Last week we told you all about the Cloudforce Social Enterprise Tour, and that some of the Planet Positive team would be attending. 

This morning, Steve, Henry, Antonia and Amy went down to the ICC Excel in London to hear all about Cloudforce and the future it holds for social enterprise.

Steve Malkin, Planet Positive’s Founder and CEO, took to the stage for a pre-keynote speech, in front of the crowd of over 14,000 in attendance at 9.15am. He spoke about why Planet Positive use Salesforce and how important it is for businesses to use these platforms, to operate sustainably and responsibly. 

He emphasised the need for businesses to address their sustainability in order to become more energy efficient, socially responsible and save money. 

This point was echoed throughout the Keynote speeches with George Hu, Chief Operating Officer at Salesforce, and some of the social enterprise leaders seen above, including John Douglas, CIO at Burberry. 

The event saw hundreds of businesses from across the UK come together to hear about how they can create their social enterprise with keynote speeches and breakout sessions in the afternoon. 

To improve on the way Planet Positive is currently working on it’s social enterprise, we have joined forces with CloudApps to bring sustainability to businesses worldwide, which Steve announced at the Cloudforce event this morning. 

To see our live Twitter streaming from today’s event, have a look here. 

Planet Positive uses CloudApps to bring sustainability to businesses worldwide  

Planet Positive’s worldwide customer base, which includes Land Securities and Deloitte, will now be able to use CloudApps’ platform to help drive our sustainability certification process to capture and reduce metrics such as energy, fuel and water usage, and save money.  

Built on Force.com, CloudApps operates on the world’s most energy efficient platform, making it an obvious choice for Planet Positive as it drives down energy usage and lowers energy spend. CloudApps software will be used to capture data, creating online sustainability and carbon footprint reports.

Steve Malkin, CEO and Founder of Planet Positive, looks forward to the journey ahead: “Planet Positive helps every business experience the benefits of sustainability. Planet Positive certification is designed to be fast, affordable, and accessible. Our objective is to enable every business to experience the benefits of sustainability. CloudApps enables us to deliver our certification worldwide in a truly sustainable way.”

Our  4-step certification process enables organisations to measure and reduce energy, water, waste and carbon, to make businesses more sustainable. Enhancing brand image is central to our vision and it encourages customers to invest in environmental projects to generate positive brand awareness. 

Planet Positive client, Jarrod Best, Managing Director of GMI Construction believes the partnership provides short term gains and long term success: “Planet Positive’s online software provides a quick, intuitive way to collect the data needed to calculate our annual carbon footprint. The easy-to-use system allows us to monitor our emissions throughout the year, improving the company’s sustainability and generating cost savings as quickly as possible.”

Peter Grant, CEO CloudApps wants the partnership to deliver a larger, sustained impact on businesses and attitudes to green issues: “To be economically sustainable businesses need to be environmentally sustainable. It calculated the energy and travelling costs to UK businesses an additional £6,500 per employee annually. The combination of Planet Positive’s certifiable brand and awareness with CloudApps ability to capture metrics precisely will help organisations worldwide in swift and cost effective manner.” 

For more information on CloudApps, look here: http://www.cloudapps.com/

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has an aspiration that 25% of public procurement should be with SMEs.

He has previously stated:  “We need a system that will drive enterprise, benefiting from the talent and innovation of Britain’s growing SME sector. Promoting a new culture of public sector purchasing that benefits from an open, competitive and transparent system is vital for our economy.”

The public sector currently spends £238 billion on goods and services a year – roughly 15% of the UK economy and £1 for every £7 spent in Britain.

Last November, the Government launched a package of radical reforms setting out a new approach to public procurement that will use the public sector’s purchasing power to deliver greater efficiencies and support economic growth.

Government has also launched the ‘Procurement Pledge’ setting out an agreed understanding with potential providers and their representative bodies that formalises this new approach and provides a mechanism from which Government can be held to account.

Given the Government’s commitment to sustainability, if SMEs can demonstrate the credentials, then there really is a big opportunity for them.

Planet Positive’s 7-days to Sustainability campaign gives SMEs a kick start to their sustainability future by providing free, practical steps and advice towards procurement and travel for example.

We’re supporting the Government’s objective and helping SMEs get there, 7 days at a time.