Your business’s carbon footprint matters… Believe it or not, your business doesn’t have to be a huge power plant to be contributing to the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. You will have no doubt heard time and time again that your business needs to do its bit to reduce carbon emissions.
We’re sure you will have heard all of the standard recommendations for reducing your businesses waste, so here at Green Deal First, we have produced a list of tips we think you might find useful.
Reduce Food Waste
You don’t have to be running a restaurant or cafe to be contributing to the amount of food waste our planet sees. Eight percent of total greenhouse gas emissions come from food waste at all stages of the food system. This makes food waste a business crisis, as well an environmental one. Minimise transportation in the food system by shopping for your businesses food locally. Additionally, you could consider an office compost programme that will recycle any food not eaten.
Use a Sustainable Web Host
Unless you host your own site, you are likely contributing to the massive amounts of waste produced by warehouses that are powered by fossil fuels. As a result of needing to be powered and kept cool at all times, data servers end up consuming massive amounts of energy. Consider switching to a sustainable hosting service. They purchase Renewable Energy Certificates to claim their renewable energy usage, so you will know they’re legitimately environmentally friendly.
Promote Dialogue Among Your Staff
People do not feel inclined to make a change just because they’re told they have to. Promote education about the climate crisis among your employees and inform them of why your business is choosing to take the action they are. Civil dialogue can be promoted by the implementation of new policies and practices around sustainability.
Once the dialogue is circulating comfortably around your staff, you can consider opening up the conversation to your customers. If you’re in the energy sector, consider talking to your customers about ECO grants UK, to help them reduce their carbon footprint too.
Try to use Fairtrade
Being perfectly realistic means acknowledging that international trade will not stop because of climate change. It must also be recognised that using a sustainable solution like fairtrade can help people in developing countries, who would be disproportionately affected by climate change otherwise. Fairtrade organisations aim to equip farmers with everything they need to combat climate change.
We hope that these recommendations have inspired you to make some changes within your business that you might not otherwise consider. It is understandable to be frustrated at hearing the same tips to help your business combat climate change, but we have to understand that this issue won’t be resolved without businesses doing their bit! A few small changes could mean everything for the future of our planet.