How can businesses be more sustainable?

(Continue to) offer remote work

Due to the pandemic, businesses had to quickly adjust to home-working and this has its own pros and cons which will vary by employer and employee. However, one of the benefits of remote working is reducing the number of cars on the road which in turn benefits the environment. Therefore, if being green is one of your business priorities, this should factor into your working arrangement plans for your staff too.  

Green travel

Leading on from the above point, it may not be possible for all roles to be performed from home, so what can you do? Whilst it won’t be feasible for everyone, encouraging more environmentally friendly forms of transport will help, here are a few pointers:

• Encourage conversations on carpooling
• Share public transport options and routes
• Ensure you have bike racks for employees that wish to cycle to work (also, see the government’s cycle to work scheme here). 

As well as the commute to the office, you should also try to reduce any other unnecessary travel. If you need to meet a client or supplier, whilst it’s always nice to have face-to-face interaction, is this necessary for every meeting? 

Make your website greener

When you think of the most polluting industries, the first one that likely comes to mind is the aviation industry. Therefore, it can be startling to know that the internet contributes more greenhouse gas emissions globally. 
Therefore, many businesses are looking for how they can reduce the CO2 their website produces and looking at greener web hosting options (as well as their entire supplier list!). Our digital marketing partner, Footprint Digital, has developed a Digital Carbon Footprint Audit to help businesses understand their environmental impact. As well as showing you how much CO2 your website produces and the problem area pages, they’ll produce recommendations to fix this. Find out more about the digital carbon footprint audit here.

Invest in newer appliances

Newer technology, public demand, and regulations mean that there’s a lot more importance placed on the energy efficiency of newer products. Therefore, if a lot of your equipment is old then it’s likely that it’s a lot less energy efficient than their newer models. So upgrading existing equipment may not only provide productivity improvements but also make this output more energy efficient. 

If you do go down this route, make sure that you sell, donate or recycle the older appliances, if not, it’s likely these will go to a landfill site and counteract your initial green aim!

Power down

If you’re investing in newer appliances that are energy-efficient, you should also ensure that you’re switching them off. When you finish a day’s work, many people like to mentally switch off and relax but they may not switch off their office lights and appliances. This is needless energy that’s being used so having a switch-off rule for appliances can help you be more energy efficient. 

Get your strategy right

If you’re looking at embracing sustainability, you may want to have a full ESG (Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance) plan. Having social and governance standards are likely to be important to your business stakeholders in the same vein as your environmental impact. This cannot be a one-off exercise and you’ll need to have a strategy in place to understand what actions you’re taking, what metrics are important to report, and what your long-term goals are.  

 Shared from UHY