There’s a lot you can do to make your business more environmentally friendly, including going carbon neutral. Not only is this your moral responsibility but it’s a sound commercial decision as many consumers are looking at the eco-credentials of companies in the coal industry before doing business there. Cutting out the carbon is not that difficult if you don’t mind working at it. An early step is to analyze your business so that you know what you need to improve. One of the best ways to do this is to hire a consultant to carry out a business life cycle analysis. This is a fancy way of saying the consultant will look into what happens at all stages of your business and will make recommendations for improvements that will help you run a more environmentally friendly enterprise.
Transport
Most businesses, whether you’re Walmart or a smaller shop have transportation requirements. These may consist of commercial delivery vehicles or company cars for the staff. Whichever it is, you can improve your green credentials by switching to electric or hybrid vehicles for your company car and delivery fleet. Not only will this save you money by reducing CO2 emissions, fuel costs and maintenance but it will also reduce your environmental impact. In addition, your consultant may identify ways of optimizing delivery routes to reduce your carbon footprint and increase the savings you can make.
The 3Rs
The 3Rs of environmental responsibility are reduce, reuse, recycle and every business can put these into practice. Whether it’s making recycling bins available for appropriate disposal of all commercial waste, reducing product packaging or recycling used paper to make scrap pads, there’s a lot you can do to cut down on waste. Even better, encourage your customers to do the same by providing incentives for them. You could even run a competition to see who comes up with the most innovative ways of helping the environment in your business context.
Energy Efficiency
Every business uses a lot of electrical equipment but there’s no rule that says that it has to be inefficient. Most electrical appliances these days feature stickers with information about their environmental impact. One such scheme is the Energy Star rating scheme. While you might be aware of this as a rating system for domestic appliances such as washing machines and fridges, it also makes it easy to choose the most efficient machinery for your office, factory or warehouse.
Carbon Credits
Finally, once you have eliminated all the waste you can and become as energy efficient as possible you can offset any remaining greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon credits. Carbon credit schemes usually contribute to charities which focus on energy generation, planting trees and other eco-friendly schemes. If you contribute an amount equivalent to the emissions that you still produce you can legitimately claim that your business is carbon neutral — and that won’t do you any harm with your customers!
Sharon Hurley Hall writes for Eden Springs, the UK’s No.1 for office water coolers, who are now trialing electric delivery vans.