EMBRACING sustainable business practices is easier than most enterprises imagine and presents lasting commercial benefits, delegates to a York environment conference will hear this week.

If a large number of York and North Yorkshire businesses took simple, easy-to-introduce steps it would soon create major benefits.

That is what City of York Council sustainability officer, Kristina Peat, will tell the Business and the Environment - A City of the Future conference organised by York-based commercial lawyers, Denison Till at the Central Science Laboratory, Sand Hutton, on Thursday.

Ms Peat will also discuss City of York Council's new eco-project reported in the Evening Press last week - a £7 million scheme which will create a new commercial services depot off Hull Road made from a timber frame and straw bales.

Building work on the new depot will start this winter and it is due to be in use by autumn 2006.

Where a traditional, air-conditioned building costs £40-a-square metre to run, the climate-controlled eco-depot will cost only £5-a- square metre.

She said: "The local authority is launching the eco-depot project because we wish to lead by example. Businesses will have to change their thinking and look at the long-term commercial and environmental benefits of their practices rather than their current short-term more damaging policies."

More than 150 delegates from across the region are due to attend the conference.

Other speakers will include Sir Ben Gill, head of the government task force on renewable energy; Neil Hurford, managing director of Yorkshire and Humber Future Energy Co, Yorkshire Forward; Jon Meacock, project manager for Heslington East development, University of York, John Reeves, chairman of The Helmsley Group, Pocklington; John Barratt of The Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York; Victor Buchannan, managing director of Bioflame, Pickering, and Andrew King of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Andrew Lindsay, head of Denison Till corporate department, said: "We are looking forward to hearing what Kristina Peat and all our speakers have to say about the implementation of sustainability policies which this year's US hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, have demonstrated require immediate action."

Updated: 10:56 Monday, October 03, 2005