Sustainability is an issue on the minds and lips of the country, as the polluting habits of the world’s largest organisations become plainer and plainer to see.
Personal and domestic changes to more environmental habits are in vogue but making minimal difference, and businesses are being called upon to do their bit. So what can your business do to increase its sustainability index as well as its profits?
Changing Your Energy Source
Making changes to your energy provider is a relatively hassle-free way of increasing your business’ sustainability, and often does not come with much further expense at all.
Shopping around for energy deals from greener sources can also result in a cheaper, saving you money in the long run – money you could well pay into a sustainability fund for further measures.
One such further measure could similarly be energy-related: the introduction of solar panels to your office’s roof, to reduce grid-energy consumption overall – and maybe give you the opportunity to store energy for other initiatives.
Electrifying your Fleet
A step further while on the subject of energy, converting any vehicles to electric vehicles is not only a chance to improve sustainability, and promote your sustainability mission publically, but to make savings on fuel costs while you do so.
Extend this conversion to any company cars your business provides, and consider offering a subsidy to employees that drive in to work, to trade in their car for an electric alternative.
Sourcing Sustainability
Take a closer look at your manufacturing processes, or your supply sources. If you make products, are the materials you are using sustainable? And could they be? If you merely distribute, maybe there’s an opportunity to pivot into finding more sustainably made products.
An excellent case in point is Damart, a clothing company which has recently introduced a range of clothes made using recycled fabrics. The new collection represents not only a transition in manufacturing processes for the company, but also an opportunity for other distribution companies to purchase women’s tops from a more sustainable source.
Offsetting CO2 Emissions
As many ways as there are to reduce your emissions, you may find it difficult or even impossible to completely eradicate your business’ carbon footprint – especially if you rely on global supply chains for which there isn’t yet a completely carbon-neutral alternative.
You can invest money in entering your business into a carbon offsetting program, or even start one up internally, whereby trees are planted to literally offset the CO2 release for which your business is indirectly responsible.
