As companies reopen with new Covid-19 regulations, nearly all will be making some fundamental changes to how they do business given the new landscape and changing consumer sentiment. Things are going to be quite different. Further, all businesses have a requirement to achieve Net Zero – i.e. your overall business activities need to be carbon neutral.
Employees and customers not only require higher standards of public hygiene but they will also be turning to businesses that are environmentally conscious. Being an environmentally responsible business, with environmentally sound practices, products and services will become the new norm. Try and get ahead of it.
We have created a simple action plan to help businesses adopt some simple steps to getting climate ready and to achieve NetZero.
Here are our 10 Steps to Make Your Business Climate Friendly:
- Switch to renewable energy in your office, factories, vehicle fleets and tools. There are a growing number of green energy suppliers so finding the right one for your needs is quite easy. Also, electric vehicles and tools are becoming much more pervasive.
- Hire on-site employees who live within a cycle commute – the rest could work from home. Help keep pollution down and fully embrace the new ways of working. Now that you have had a few months to put in place successful home working routines and processes during the Coronavirus lockdown it’s time to lock those benefits in.
- Minimise waste and recycle everything you can. The Zero Waste movement is starting to pick up some steam – try and adopt what is practical in an office setting. Become a single use plastics free business.
- Lease an eco-office, warehouse or factory with a zero carbon footprint. At a minimum make sure your office is as well insulated as possible for the winter and allows as much sunlight, for natural warming, during the late spring and summer. That way you will use less energy heating your offices.
- Train employees in DSP’s 10 steps to Help Solve the Climate Change Crisis.
- Rewild your green areas. Plant trees, shrubs and wild grasses – the combination of the three provides the basic habitats for wildlife and insects. Place benches in nature to support employee wellbeing.
- Train your company leaders in the methods and approaches to developing environmentally conscious behaviours, practises and products.
- Source eco materials and local supplies wherever possible from environmentally conscious suppliers.
- Organise team meetings and away days at eco-friendly hotels and venues. Try to set up outdoor meeting spaces and actively support outdoor meetings when employees, suppliers or customers are at your offices.
- Measure the improvements and accomplishments you are achieving on the road to becoming fully climate friendly on a 6 monthly basis and communicate your progress to employees and customers.
Building an environmentally conscious organisation is an exciting process and one which will prove highly satisfying for you and your organisation. Done right, it will also add considerable value to your products or services as well as your brand. Include all your stakeholders in the journey – it could prove quite empowering and motivational.
At DSP we help organisations and individuals to become more climate friendly and adopt healthier living approaches. We offer a cost effective online app, DSP Online, to help you better understand how to become environmentally conscious with simple actionable techniques gleaned from the day to day approaches and learnings at DSP’s center of excellence in the UK southwest. Sign up to DSP Online today – CLICK HERE.
Philip Letts 