THE emerging green agenda represents the biggest change to business since the industrial revolution.

A flurry of environmental legislation over the past decade has had an impact on all companies, regardless of their size, and covered everything from the disposal of waste to the cost of energy.

Other key areas of environmental legislation include: air quality; packaging; solvents; water quality; and hazardous waste.

The extent to which your firm is affected depends on the sector you operate in. But without regulation, vital action needed to reduce behaviour which is harmful to the environment would simply not happen.

The use of energy is perhaps the one sphere that affects every company. Like all members of the European Union, Britain is committed to reducing carbon emissions by 12.5 per cent - from 1990 figures - by 2012. As a result, the government has introduced the Climate Change Levy to encourage companies to become more energy efficient.

This is already included in energy bills and the more power a company uses, the greater the CCL payment.

From later this year, companies that use more than £500,000 of electricity a year will also be required to participate in the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme. While success will result in discounts on the CCL of up to 80 per cent, companies that fail to reach certain targets could be fined.

Christine Hewson, a partner at business advisors KPMG in Manchester, said: "The Climate Change Bill will become law in 2008, providing the UK with a framework to achieve a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

"The bill contains enabling powers to introduce new trading schemes - such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment - and requires mandatory reporting for companies listed on the stock exchange to include carbon emission information in their annual reports.

"It will also impose a requirement on businesses to report emissions from company cars, boilers and on-site equipment.

Impacts

"This is an extension to the Companies Act - which already requires companies to provide a review of the wider environmental and social impacts of their work alongside their annual reports - but it goes further in that it details what must be included."

Another sphere which affects virtually every company is waste.

The message to `reduce, reuse and recycle' is as important for businesses now as it has ever been. But, under recent legislation, there is also an onus on producers and manufacturers of some goods to take responsibility for these products when they come to the end of their life. These include: Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment legislation; Restriction of Hazardous Substances laws; as well as Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals legislation.

The north west's 440,000 small businesses can get information about how to dispose of every kind of waste at the online government directory netregs.gov.uk. Firms can search by waste type - from animal waste to building waste and chemicals to office waste.

Richard Critchley, Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce's policy manager for transport, environment and planning, said increasingly stringent regulations are already taking their toll on businesses. "This is a huge issue for businesses and a growing concern, costing firms billions every year," he said.

"The difficulty for UK businesses is that 80 per cent of environmental legislation originates from the EU, making awareness and involvement in the decision making processes difficult. This is compounded by a tendency of UK legislators to `gold plate' emerging regulations by extending the scope and adding additional requirements to an original EU directive."

But Mr Critchley added that while more stringent environmental regulations are being seen as a cost and a burden to some, an increasing numbers of enterprising firms are turning this to their advantage.

"Public awareness and sensitivity towards environmental issues is at an all time high, making promotion of green credentials clear business sense," he said.

"This provides a strong incentive for quick implementation of emerging regulations but also puts pressure on the government to provide a more clear direction and a lead on these issues.

"In an increasingly global market - with a growing public concern for green issues - having high environmental standards can potentially provide firms with a strong market advantage.

Burden

"But this does not negate the time and cost burden of environmental legislation."

Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, believes that increased environmental legislation does not pose as big a threat to business as at first might appear.

"Resource depletion, rising energy prices, climate change, impending mass extinction, ecosystem damage and huge economic inequalities are shaping a new business environment," he writes in his book `How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change A Planet'.

"What is required is a quite different approach to that which has prevailed in recent decades.

"Given what we know about the state of the environment and how things are set to become much more serious, which companies are likely to be the future leaders?

"Is it those making the most modern wind turbines or those manufacturing gas-guzzling cars?

"To this extent, is environment regulation really such a threat?"