If you produce cardboard packaging, you have to take that cardboard packaging back. It's the manufacturer's responsibility to the end product and if you don't change, you'll be regulated out of business.

Jeremy Hastings Ecotech

Under EU law, it will soon be a requirement for companies to ensure their products are recycled and environmentally friendly.

In the UK, which has one of the lowest recycling rates in the world, the small market town of Swaffham in the rural area of East Anglia is already showing some of the results.

In the shadow of the largest direct drive wind turbine in the UK, which produces enough electricity to power half the town, is the Ecotech Centre.

Established with an EU grant, Ecotech bristles with an array of energy-saving and waste-recycling devices.

European example

Businesses should learn from their counterparts in Germany and Holland, which have already implemented EU recycling legislation, says director Jeremy Hastings.

Ecotech was established with EU money

"If you produce cardboard packaging, you have to take that cardboard packaging back," said Mr Hastings told the BBC's World Business Report.

"It's the manufacturer's responsibility to the end product and if you don't change, you'll be regulated out of business," he adds.

Ecotech works together with the UK business advisory service Business Link to promote environmental sustainable development.

"In Ecotech we have a potentially growing centre of expertise, probably one of the few of its type in Europe, and we're very keen to help promote that and build on it," said Business Link chief executive Denise Anderson.

"There are some significant longer-term bottom line profits."

Against the grain

On a new business park next door to Ecotech, is Anglia Woodnet, a woodland management agency which is establishing one of the first group certification schemes for small producers of eco-friendly timber and wood products.

"It's the large companies overseas who've tended to produce the certified timber, that they've got economies of scale to be able to do," said manager Jeremy Samuel.

While there is awareness among small businesses of the profits to be made from these products, the cost to set up and gain certification is holding them back, says the company.

"For example, crazily enough charcoal comes all the way from South Africa and is certified," said Mr Samuel.

"Whereas the local product with the smaller producers has more difficulty getting in unless they come together as a group."