You’re a business owner, but you still care about the environment. What can you do to lower the footprint of your company? If this is a passion of yours you are probably already familiar with energy efficient solutions to lower your home carbon footprint, but the tips below can help you get started doing the same for your business.
Identify Your Carbon Footprint
Before you can do anything, you need a clear picture of where your company stands. There are businesses and organizations that can help you with this determination if you need it. Once you know what you are working with, you can start taking steps to reduce. Transparency is key, both with your employees and with your customers.
Work on changing the culture, if necessary, to one that always has an eye on the environmental impact of your decisions. Think about the long-term. Many of the environmentally damaging decisions that companies make are all about the short-term profit. When you are thinking about how to build a sustainable business that can grow into the future and continue being a positive force for carbon reduction, you will be able to put systems in place that reflect those values.
More Efficient Transportation
Look at ways that your company can be more efficient in how transport is used. What this means will vary depending on the nature of your business, but allowing some or all of your workforce to work from home at least part of the time will mean that they are using fewer fossil fuels to get to and from the office. If working from home isn’t feasible or if you do need people to be on site at least some of the time, you could offer incentives to employees who carpool or take public transportation.
If fleet management is an aspect of your business, keep in mind that a more efficient fleet is better for your company and better for the planet. This can be achieved in part with a versatile platform that helps you deliver high-quality projects, meeting deadlines and coming in under budget. The advantage of this type of software, which can improve your bottom line with insights driven by real-time visibility, is that whether you need to manage construction projects, make sure your delivery drivers are working effectively or work with contractors sporadically based on demand, you can use this software to make improvements across the board. You may also want to gradually replace your fleet with vehicles that are as energy-efficient as possible.
Appoint a Sustainability Manager
You might consider creating a new position for a sustainability manager. This person’s job description would involve making sure that the company meets and exceeds sustainability standards. If your company is a small one, you might want to split an employee’s job duties so that this is one part of their responsibility. This won’t be appropriate for every company, but for some, having a sustainability manager can help ensure that aiming for a low- or zero-carbon business is a priority rather than an afterthought. This person could also look at ways that your company could work with others as well as helm initiatives within your community to reduce everyone’s carbon footprint.
