91 www.gogreen-project.eu At the same time, they strive to ensure the continuous education of the staff in line with the cutting edge of proper utilization of land, equipment/technologies, environmental protection, and tomato growing/production/processing. They are interested in creating a culture within their staff that aligns with universally accepted goals aiming to reduce the business environmental footprint. It is a priority to educate the staff in applying green practices in line with a common goal that they have all established. This will increase the company’s CSR and improve its brand image at the market. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that the business budget is not without limitation, thus, the management (business owners) will always opt for the most cost-effective path in every short- or long-term decision they have to make. All aforementioned will eventually lead to cost reduction and increase both the company and staff benefits. 2. The Environmental Expert is an external professional working as an Environmental Consultant for a private consultancy firm. He/She is an expert who can assess and monitor the impact of any activity on the environment, identify environmental issues, and provide solutions. He/She can also help companies to address environmental issues and reduce their environmental impact in areas such as water, air or soil contamination, waste production and management, etc., having extensive knowledge on environmental regulations and legislation, along with the scientific knowledge and technical expertise to perform environmental analysis, assessments and recommendations. The Environmental Consultant is also well aware of local, regional, national and EU financial funding opportunities for green/sustainable transitions for agri-food business. In this scenario, he/she has been invited by the owners to a meeting to provide some not-binding advice and pose his/her opinion in any question that may arise during the meeting. 3. The Local Community Representative serves the interests of the regional association which consists of people who are passionately concerned with the protection of the local community and its natural area. Well aware of the negative consequences of the abrupt expansion of industry into their region during last decades, the local community representative suggests that the scenario’s business activity further decreases the quality of the local environment and contributes to its deterioration and the air pollution. Many of the nearby residents feel that their environment and natural world should be protected at any cost. Therefore, they keep putting pressure on local authorities to take action by scrutinizing operations, GHGs production and waste management across local agricultural businesses, imposing penalty-fines to those that do not invest in new technologies and/or abstain from using cleaner energy. Through its representative, the association also requires some regular official information by businesses of their region with detailed reports on their footprint measurements and the fossil fuels consumption, along with any future plans for investment in eco-oriented products and operations. 4. The Company Staff Representative reflects the opinion of the company staff, which comes from a great variety of education and cultural background. When hired, they are in general committed to several core values from the company such as respect, knowledge, cooperation and continuous improvement. However, the staff is also satisfied with how things are currently working, along with the systems and procedures that have been in place for years, and even if they are aware of the importance of environment and sustainability, it is not an issue at the top or very high in their priority list. The staff is this scenarios’ main target audience, whose behavior the Company Owners
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