The Environment Exchange (t2e) provides a trading environment for companies that have exceeded their packaging waste recovery obligations to sell their excess of certificated activity to organisations that have been unable to meet their obligations. By purchasing PRNs these organisations are then able to meet their obligations under the law. Trading in Packaging Recovery Notes (PRNs) is becoming increasingly competitive as a result of new entrants and price competition. t2e wishes to reinforce its position in the (PRN) market by improving efficiency (enabling in it to compete on price) and improving the web-based service it provides (to give users a more efficient and attractive trading environment). This approach will consolidate and protect the current business but will not lead to substantial growth: to address this the company has identified an opportunity to diversify into trading environmental commodities (particularly recovered paper products) to increase turnover / profitability and reduce its exposure to the PRN market. The partnership has three strategic aims:

• To develop centralised trading markets for secondary raw materials such as recovered paper (potential markets identified in China).
• To redevelop outdated software to support the established PRN trading activities, provide a viable trading platform for commodities and integrate the trading software with the company’s accounts package to reduce administration and improve the availability of real time management information.
• To develop an internal IT support resource to reduce reliance on outsourcing and control the costs of this key aspect of the business