The classic nice-to-have, but not something the business is able to focus on right now. Sustainability is one of those bottom-of-the-pile priority tasks and yet the pressures to tackle it are increasing across your team.
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There’s poor Peter from HR who has been given the task of ‘making the office sustainable’. Or there’s a team of sustainability officers all turning to one another trying to come up with any solution that ticks a green box. Or worst of all, everyone’s passing the buck onto someone else.
Nobody want to take charge, but everyone knows something must be done.
Whether it’s tender applications requiring scope 3 emissions or your own internal greener plan deadlines looming, we’ve got a guide to get you started. Just follow these simple steps.
Step 1: Figure out why sustainability is low on your agenda.
In order to move forward from where you are, you need to know where you’re at. So, the first thing to do is establish why sustainability is low on your agenda.
No judgement from us over here! We’re going to explore this with you. It’s time to ask yourself some simple questions.
Does it all fall to one person to organise?
Is that person significantly overwhelmed with other workload?
Does that person even exist?
Who is in charge of delivery sustainability in your workplace?
Now we know what you’re thinking ‘that’s a step ahead of where we’re at!’ and you’re not alone.
Many businesses don’t have a clue about who the responsibility of sustainability lies to, or whether that responsibility even exists. Which brings us swiftly to the next few questions you need to ask.
What does sustainability mean to us?
Why is sustainability on our agenda?
How is sustainability in our list of priorities?
Are you starting to get the picture? You need to figure out where you’re currently at. It’s important to set a baseline so that you can move forward. Usain Bolt never sprinted to a finish line without first standing on a start line. Dig deep, create your start line, and then advance to step two.
As a recap, all organisations should be aware of the limitations of open and click-through rates as metrics, be selective about the email lists they use, and avoid sending too many emails.
Step 2: Set yourself some basic goals
You’ve set your start line, now it’s time to break down the event in to checkpoints. We need some easy wins. Remember to not overthink this. Make it broad, make it easy, make it something that even the most unsustainable person on the team can relate to and understand.
“We want to reduce our carbon footprint”
“We want to recycle more rubbish in the office”
“We want to save money on our energy bills”
“We want people to stop blocking our toilets!”
Okay, that last one is a little far-fetched, but we all know that sewer blockages are causing nightmares across the country. You’ll be amazed how many everyday issues relate to your businesses sustainability.
If you want to save or reduce anywhere in the business, the likelihood is that it’ll have a positive impact on the environment.
Get a few goals in place that everyone in the business can have an impact on and then move onto step three.
Step 3: Walking the walk, made easy
You know why sustainability isn’t a priority. You want to tick the box. You’ve got your broad and basic goals and you know you want to reach them. Now it’s time to get your hands dirty, and we don’t mean literally by planting trees!
You need to do a little research and set a baseline around your goals. After all, how can you be sure you’re hitting targets if you can’t measure the success?
This might be how many watts are used in your energy bill.
It might be the number of rubbish bags that are collected each week from the office.
It might be discovering how many miles each employee is travelling to get to the office and calculating their carbon footprint (extra points for this one!).
Then, action. If you’re talking about reducing the businesses carbon footprint, it might be introducing hybrid office working. It could be public transport loans to avoid employees travelling in cars. Even a bonus scheme for car sharing can help.
There are plenty of opportunities no matter what your sustainability targets are.
The important thing to do is enable everyone in your workforce. In order to create the change you seek, you need to provide everyone with the opportunity to join, the capability to change and some motivation to do so.
Get creative, this one requires your most enthusiastic thinkers.
Step 4: What benefits can come from investing in sustainable practices?
If something’s worth doing, there’s got to be a benefit. Now, it’s a given that the environment and our planet will benefit from any sustainable changes you make in the workplace, but that’s always been the case and yet sustainability is still a low priority.
So, what are the real benefits?
First of all, these benefits will vary from business-to-business, but that doesn’t mean they can’t apply to you.
As the competition for pitches and tenders grows, there are more requirements being listed. Having your eco-ducks in a row can be a significant green flag for you and your business.
If you’ve ticked your box in-house, you can tick the box for multiple tenders and other businesses. You no longer become a temporary contract that may need to be reviewed in one year due to national scope 3 emission expectations.
Remember: Time might be of the essence
We’re not here to apply any unnecessary pressure. We all have our challenges. After all, there’s a reason sustainability is a low priority. But by using this guide, you can still get it ticked off without it taking up too much time, energy or resource.
Figure out where you’re currently at, set goals, discover baselines, get creative when implementing changes, and measure your success however fits best. Keeping in mind that there will always be a benefit to ticking the sustainability box once and for all.