Consumers have become much more environmentally conscious than ever before. It has impacted their buying habits drastically. Consumers would be happy to purchase an iPhone 13 without a charging brick as Apple did for environmental reasons. Even if your business is small or just starting, your carbon footprint can be severely impacted throughout the source-to-end user process.
Consumers are now more conscious of nature and climate change; they incline toward brands that equally value nature. Thus, sustainability should take priority in any business, big or small. Let’s see how you can create a sustainable business.
You can’t throw a dart and hit the bull’s eye in the dark unless you know where it is. A business generates a carbon footprint, and as an objective to create a sustainable business, you must look for ways to reduce it. Your carbon footprint is the sum of paper you used, resources you consumed, utilities you used, modes of transport, and all kinds of direct and indirect ways used to do a business. There’s a lot to consider when assessing your carbon footprint and it is time-consuming. However, once you have a set figure, you can look for ways to reduce it.
If you are a business that sells products, you should be concerned with how the product is being manufactured. Was the raw material used in the product spruced from an ethical and environmentally-friendly source? Did your supplier and the node above follow fair trade? Does your product come in excessive packaging or is it recycled? A small business can easily analyze all these questions to find its environmental impact and take action accordingly.
The pandemic has shown businesses worldwide that they can operate remotely as well. There are a few benefits of providing remote work. First up, you have to pay less rent towards occupying employees as a business. Entertaining fewer employees at the office means you pay less in terms of heating and cooling, stocking, lighting, and other utilities.
It ensures that the employees have a work-life balance thanks to the flexibility remote work can offer. Entertaining fewer employees on-site enables you to save the world by plugging the bit of CO2 emissions every day for every employee. Although it might not seem like a lot, it quickly adds up when you consider giving remote work to dozens of employees at a time.
Offices use a lot of paper. It is estimated that the US alone uses 12.1 trillion sheets of paper per year. For the uninitiated, that’s a lot of damage to the environment that can be cut back. Now that almost everything has gone online, switching to online paperwork and invoicing can cause your carbon footprint to go down drastically. Even if you can’t achieve a 100% paper-free business status, saving countless trees simply by switching to online invoicing makes a lot of difference.
A physical office requires numerous equipment, lighting systems, appliances, electronics and utilities like electricity, water, heating, etc. You can switch to LED lamps instead of the conventional lighting systems. You can bring in more natural light by using bigger windows instead of electricity to light the place. Using solar panels can help save you a lot in electricity bills. You can opt for plants inside the office to enhance air quality. There’s simply a lot you can achieve sustainably by doing minor changes here and there.
MCC Coaching has empowered businesses with concrete advice and guidance to manage all functions in an organization with sheer confidence. We deal with strategic coaching and group and business coaching across different verticals, be it black belt six sigma, PMP, lean manufacturing, change management, and others. Reach out to us for our quality knowledge about business plans and world-class training.