In a business age where maintaining a sustainable business is synonymous with high expenses, it is important to remind companies and entrepreneurs that eco-friendly can be profitable too. Your green aspirations don’t need to break the bank anymore. Companies that have decided to invest in a green approach, such as Marks & Spencer with its Plan A for sustainability programme, have been able to record positive revenues as a result. Plan A was budgeted to cost more than £200m. However, the company rapidly reported a profit of £105m. In other words, while there is money to be made in giving your business a green upgrade. Naturally, sustainability is a long term initiative. Therefore it is important to review your situation to identify areas of potential improvement from the start, and to gain an understanding of how the economics of a sustainable business works. Savings can be made in terms of energy costs, production costs, and even in HR. All it takes is understanding how environmentally-conscious your company is and how green you want it to become.
Are You Environmentally Conscious?
Environmentally conscious businesses have become a legal requirement in more and more countries. While the UK has implemented several green-inspired regulations, companies are currently not encouraged to build an eco-friendly structure. As a result, it can be tricky to know where to start and to understand the impact that your company has on the environment. The easiest way around it is to perform an energy audit to monitor how much your company relies on traditional energy sources, and where you are using it most. Simple things such as keeping the lights on throughout the nights can have a negative impact, not only on your budget but also on the planet. Your energy audit will be useful to identify areas where you can cut down the energy that you consume or even look for alternative solutions.
Improve Your Energy Dependency
Improving your energy consumption as a business requires changes. Simple ones, such as training your staff not to overprint or to keep the lights off when they are not necessary. Big ones, such as becoming partially energy independent with the installation of self-producing sources of energy, from external air source heat pumps – it’s a generator that converts the heat in the ground into a heated solution for your office – to solar panels on the roof. If your company is based in a wet region, you can also add a rainwater collector, so that once the water has been filtered, it can be used in your offices. As you embrace the potential of eco-friendly energy generators, you can begin to notice a drop in your overall costs, but also a significant drop in consumption as your team becomes more aware of destructive behaviours.
Reward Green Behaviour In Your Team
Finally, it’s important to point out that you can also encourage your employees to embrace the green movement and make significant savings too. For instance, the cycle scheme in the UK enables employees who choose to cycle to work to buy a bike at a discounted price. You can also provide financial incentives to raise awareness, such as rewarding employees with a percentage of the savings related to the sustainability programme. This is the most effective way to get the full support of your employees. The more they support, the more you save.
