Climate change is pretty high on the agenda in the news at present, mainly due to wildfires across Europe and California and unprecedented flooding in Belgium and Germany. I asked Jacky Sherman, chair of the Green Business Network to write a guest post ...
I think there are a number of interrelated benefits:
- Firstly, there's increased profit through cost reduction by reducing waste. The usual ways people think of waste is with the tangible things that feature in the business overheads; energy, water, raw products, fuel. It also includes re-examining what ends up being thrown away, maybe from your manufacturing process, but also just in the general running of your business. Think packaging, paper, replacement items. Jane Varly, our main consultant for environmental standards, always starts a site visit with a trip to the bin.
Next, we have increased productivity which is the other side of the coin. Re-examining your processes by asking yourself,"How do we do things around here?" From an environmental perspective, this has benefits in improving efficiency. Firstly by being an ethical and responsible business will help you recruit and retain quality staff. The best people pick where they work. Increasingly, they want to work for companies that take their social, ethical and environmental responsibilities seriously.
Motivated and engaged staff take less sick leave, work faster and harder and make fewer mistakes. The environmental agenda dovetails nicely into your Health a Wellbeing at work initiatives.
Then there are the others in your supply chain. By building collaborative relationships with your customers and suppliers to examine ways you can help each other for instance by reducing or recycling packaging.
Being efficient, and demonstrating your commitment to this agenda will also give you a Competitive advantage leading to more new and loyal clients.
Most larger companies, and certainly all public sector clients, will expect to see evidence of how you're addressing this agenda as an essential component of any bids or tenders for work. Other clients will have their own environmental agendas and if you can help them address those as an added value to your core services it is likely to tip the balance in your favour.
Despite all our efforts to reverse the impact we are having on the planet, the evidence is that there will be more global and local crises and challenges that will test our resilience!
Anecdotal though it may be, those businesses which survived and, in some cases, even thrived during the pandemic were those who had good robust business practices in place. Much of what we think of as good for the planet is good for business, and much of what has always been good for business will help us ride whatever storms are coming our way.
If you feel inspired to find out more about anything I've said here, do call me on 01908 774320 or leave a comment below and I'll be in touch as soon as I can.