The rate of Britain’s emergence from recession and momentous global events such as the economic bailouts required for Greece bring home the need for sustainability in business.

That doesn’t mean sustainability in the environmental sense – although that’s crucial too. A sustainable business is one which operates in a way that creates wealth for itself as well as the wider community – one that will not only survive but thrive. With its focus on cutting the deficit, the government is backing private business to expand its wealth creation capacity.

And it is not difficult to see the attraction of this strategy. As a business grows it creates jobs – both directly and through the supply chain. This creates additional employment opportunities and increases spending power within the local economy. The tax revenue generated benefits the public purse and the knock-on benefit is improved public infrastructure – our transport and telecoms networks for example.

It is good, then, to see wealth creation at the heart of the strategies of the new Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). This fits extremely well with the business training programmes provided by the Business School, which are all designed to promote long-term profitability and growth.

Preparing for business sustainability means having the basic skills in place and knowing where to turn when you need help. With the demise of Business Link, that means we have an even more important role in facilitating wealth creation by ensuring vital training and development courses are still easy to access and affordable.

The continued popularity of our Acorns programme for start-up businesses demonstrates the appetite for entrepreneurial training that gets the basics in place. Starting a business is a tremendously exciting time but enthusiasm soon wanes when lack of management and planning turns the day job into one of survival rather than growth.

Programmes like Acorns therefore help entrepreneurs maintain their dream and vision by instilling the fundamental skills needed to be sustainable.

Supported with mentoring in the longer term, this helps to keep SMEs on an even keel to navigate the challenges presented by the increasingly global marketplace that businesses must adapt to.

• More information on the business training programmes provided by York St John Business School is available by calling 01904 876915 or email business.school@yorksj.ac.uk