Sustainability Business Tips
On Wednesday 5th December Chamber welcomed Katie Stafford, Sustainable Development Manager for Marks & Spencer as guest speaker for a seminar based on sustainability and what local businesses could be doing in this area. Below are some tips Katie gave the audience:
· Know your impact
Get some heads together in your business, have a brainstorm, what does your business do, where does it have an impact? Is it in your own operations; is it in your supply chain? Do you have influence over other companies via investments, advisory roles, what kind of paper do you use in the office, how much do you spend on electricity, water, waste removal? The questions are endless but you will be surprised at how much you can do quite easily once you have scoped it all out.
· Make a plan
Out of your impacts what are the key ones? Where can you have an influence? What are the opportunities you see and what are the risks you identify that need to be managed? Don’t start with everything and don’t try to become green crusaders over night but do start somewhere!
· Link your plan to your commercial strategy
This isn’t a ‘nice to do’ aside from day to day business – this can represent significant opportunities to differentiate your brand in the community, become the employer of choice, and motivate your staff or to mitigate serious reputation and continuity risks. What targets have you got for the business? Could reducing energy bills help you meet profit targets, could employee volunteering help you to reduce the turnover rate in your organisation?
· Balance your aspirations with your performance
You have to match the words with performance. Yes there is opportunity here but customers are becoming a lot savvier and will spot a fraud in the end. Beware of making green claims without having done your homework; cynical marketing ploys can do more harm than good!
· Get the support of your employees
Do get the support of your employees – most people do care about some or all the green and ethical issues so most employees will respond well to any plans if you get them on board and it’s vital to making systematic changes to the way you do business.
· Reduce your energy consumption
Every business uses energy. There are loads of simple ways to reduce energy from classic ‘switch off’ programmes for lights, computers etc, to better, more efficient equipment (lighting, air con, heating, IT, refrigeration). There is a lot of information available now on how to do this for examples see the website of the Carbon Trust to help you understand the savings you could make as a business.
· Look at your waste output
How much waste does your business generate and dispose of? Can you cut that down? Can you recycle it? It doesn’t all have to be big savings something as simple as using mugs in the office instead of plastic cups can help? Have you got reminders on the bottom of your emails not to print them out? Do you print double sided? All these things are part of changing your impact and also the way you and your employees think.
· Be creative!
Harness the power of your businesses to do good and seek the new emerging commercial opportunities.
· Listen to the Scientists!
And get informed and spread the word, help people to stop convincing themselves that inaction is a justifiable option. Education and motivation through the workplace is a very powerful tool, after all we all spend long enough at work don’t we!
· Have fun!
There is nothing more likely to turn people off than boring, worthy, doom mongering. The key is that people feel that they can do something and play their part. So what can your organization do that you can do to inspire people and to enable them to make change? Competitions, debates, prizes, volunteering opportunities?
The possibilities are endless.
Chamber will be looking at more sustainable issues and holding further events for 2008, so please watch this space!