The development of Tweed Horizons began during 1993 when Scottish Enterprise launched a competition within the Local Enterprise Network, inviting submissions from local enterprise companies which were innovative and not seen as part of mainstream economic development.

The timing was perfect — the Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro 1992, had just taken place and there was increasing pressure on business to address the growing concern for the quality of the global environment.

Scottish Borders Enterprise at that time quickly recognised the key role that industry had in finding technological solutions which would contribute to the protection of the environment and the significant economic development opportunity presented by emerging technologies including renewable energy, environmental monitoring equipment, building systems and biotechnology. The successful bid by Scottish Borders Enterprise was based on the provision of a "sheltered" environment for the start-up of new sustainable technology businesses, which had potential for growth in world wide markets currently estimated at £400 billion.

Of course today there is even greater environmental awareness than there was 4 years ago. The fact is that consumers are increasingly demanding environmentally safe products, customers and investors are demanding environmentally responsible business practices within companies, and regulation is increasingly targeting environmental protection.

So what "change" has Scottish Borders Enterprise received from the investment in Tweed Horizons?

With support from Objective 5(b), Tweed Horizons Centre for Sustainable Technology opened for business in November 1995. Eighteen companies now occupy Tweed Horizons, 70 jobs have been created and there is an estimated turnover of around £4 million.

The Centre has:

• created the beginning of a cluster of businesses working in environmental and sustainable technologies

• brought forward advanced information communications technologies to a rural region

• by demonstration encouraged innovative thinking into agricultural diversification.

However, this is not the full story!

Several of the companies are now on the verge of the transition between development and commercialisation. The following example demonstrates the potential benefit which can be gained.

Border Biofuels was formed with the primary objective of meeting the growing concerns over the environment by encouraging the installation of commercially viable heat and power generation projects and at the same time developing a new rural enterprise supplying locally sourced energy crops and forestry residues as biomass fuel feedstocks.

Border Biofuels is currently developing 7 projects around the UK which will have an installed electrical capacity of 69MWe by 2002. This means in terms of sustainable development this company will achieve:

• Employment — 900 jobs throughout the UK predominantly within rural areas

• Environment — 110,000 tonnes of emissions will be avoided each year

• Economy — turnover of £60 million per year

• Create a local demand for £30 million/year of wood fuel

The products of several of the companies have generated interest world wide, and representatives from various countries have visited Tweed Horizons including South Africa, China, Israel, Sweden, Finland, Poland and the United States. There are real prospects of both licensing agreements and joint ventures being agreed.

During the next few years the aim of Scottish Borders Enterprise will be to ensure the existing companies receive the necessary support to enable them to become successful in the global market place and in addition effort will be made to add an additional 30 companies to the cluster which hopefully will create a further 150 jobs.

The most exciting addition to the cluster this year has been the establishment of the Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology at Tweed Horizons which is a partnership between Heriot Watt University, Scottish College of Textiles and Scottish Borders Enterprise. The Institute will become fully operational later this year and the objectives are as follows:

• To create an educational programme on sustainable development which will be meaningful to all sections of society

• To design a business development programme which will address the needs of both new and existing companies in integrating sustainable development into their business planning

• To encourage the use of sustainable technology in business and in commerce

• To demonstrate and identify examples of best practice in sustainability and to evaluate their impact and replicability

• To undertake research and development into the viability of sustainable technology for both generic areas and specific sites

• To establish a market place for data retrieval and dissemination of information on sustainable development.

The expectation is that 6 staff will be engaged initially in a variety of work, and it is hoped that the research fellowships will attract private sector sponsors, this will only be realised if the research undertaken is of obvious value to the private sector.

It would be wrong to give the impression that all of the Scottish Borders Enterprise activity in the field of sustainable development is concentrated at Tweed Horizons. For 2 years now we have been implementing a development strategy for sustainable enterprise at Selkirk Riverside, which is an area containing 60 companies operating mainly in textiles, printed circuit board manufacture and the construction industry.

The aims of the project, which is supported by the European Programme RETEX are:

• To show the benefits to companies by adopting the principles and practices of sustainable development

• To improve the competitiveness of companies

• To encourage new solutions which will lead to diversification of product

• To create employment.

Not unexpectedly when the project began, management and shop floor workers within the companies had a lack of awareness and knowledge of environmental issues and as a result they were regarded as peripheral to their main business activities. However, significant progress has been made, the companies are now most enthusiastic and are working much more closely together, but we have to realise it will be some time before the results of this pioneering work can be demonstrated.

As a result of the work at Tweed Horizons and Selkirk, Scottish Borders Enterprise has considerably improved its understanding of the clear distinction between strategies associated with environmental management, ecological management and sustainable development -sustainable development encapsulating the economy, employment and the environment.

However, the most important outcome has been the growing recognition within business in the Scottish Borders, that their strategic management should not look at the environment in isolation, but must also take into account the social and economic dimensions which together provide quality jobs, and competitive and profitable companies.

Surely "no little change"!

David Douglas is Chief Executive, Scottish Borders Enterprise.