4 Ways to Promote Sustainability in Your Business
Sustainable changes can have big impacts on your business
If there’s one major corporate buzzword for the coming year, it would be “sustainability”. In 2023, more and more companies are recognizing the importance of being environmentally and socially responsible to not only benefit the planet but also their bottom line. Consumers, investors, and governments are all putting pressure on corporations to take action on sustainability issues. As a result, companies are increasingly incorporating sustainability into their overall business strategy and operations. From investing in renewable energy sources to reducing their reliance on paper with online forms, the corporate world is taking important steps toward a more sustainable future.
If sustainability has found its way into your core values or business goals for the coming year, it’s time to build your game plan and set some milestones. Here are a few great ways that your business can make big or small changes to embrace a greener approach within any industry.
Why Should My Business Focus on Sustainability?
If you’re still on the fence about prioritizing sustainability within your business, there are plenty of reasons to move forward with the idea. Keep in mind that many of these changes don’t have to be large or difficult to implement, though making a big splash in conserving the environment always makes for a great story.
Keep Your Budget in Check
Unless you’re in finance, the budget planning part of running your business may not be your favorite. When it comes to planning your budget this year, take a look at the total cost your company spends on printing costs. The average employee racks up $735 annually with printing, usually around 9,000 pages per year - and in many cases, up to a fifth of those pages go entirely unread. Whether you have five employees or 500, those costs can add up significantly. Try using a savings calculator to see just how much paperwork is impacting your budget.
Attract New Customers
Sustainability doesn’t just save your business on printing and paper, however. It can be beneficial when trying to attract new customers. A NielsenIQ survey indicates that in 2023, consumers will prioritize sustainability in their favorite brands and services. If your company can boast about your sustainability efforts, whether those are internal processes or how you interact with your customers and vendors, it’ll make your brand more appealing to your potential customers.
“In 2023, 46% of consumers are looking to brands to take the lead on creating sustainable change.”
Focus on the Environment
If the thought of saving money or expanding your customer appeal isn’t enough to consider the importance of sustainability, then take a broader look at the world. As far as we’ve come with technology and travel, we still only have one planet. Wouldn’t it be great to be one of the businesses on the side of preserving and caring for the place we all call home? Even little changes, like implementing recycling programs onsite, can make a big difference in corporate sustainability.
How Can I Promote Sustainability in My Business?
When it comes to promoting sustainability, or executing a plan to reduce your company’s carbon footprint, you have a lot of options. Many of these are simple ways to bring more green-focused processes in-house, but you can always opt to go bigger. A lot of this will depend on your company's size, goals, and budget.
Move Away From Paper Processes
In addition to the cost savings your business will see by moving away from paper forms and storage, you’ll see a huge impact on your carbon footprint. Paper usage, despite the vast array of digital alternatives available, is still on the rise. With an estimated 476 million metric tons of paper to be consumed by 2032, up from the 415 million metric tons used in 2022, it’s a good time to focus on minimizing paper usage. Not only will this help maintain forests and natural woodland habitats, but it will also decrease the volume of waste in landfills.
If saving trees isn’t your top priority, imagine the efficiency improvements of implementing digital solutions throughout your daily business processes. These can help minimize manual entry errors, eliminate illegible paperwork, and get your data and information exactly where you need it as soon as it’s generated. Take a manual payroll process, for example. If your business currently has employees filling out paper timecards, or manually clocking in and out, it’s then on each employee or your HR department to collect those timesheets, either manually calculate or enter them into your payroll system, and then write individual checks for each employee.
By switching to a digital timesheet you can use online timesheet templates to have employees enter their hours digitally, automatically calculate pay rates and overtime hours, then instantly route that information directly to your payroll or accounting system. Not only can that facilitate direct deposit for faster payments to your employees, but it can also give you a detailed insight into how many hours are being spent on different projects and clients. You’ll be saving trees and time, all while gathering better business data.
Eliminate Single-Use Items From Your Office
If your break room looks like a standard office, you likely have an assortment of paper or plastic cups, cutlery, and plates available for your team. These are great things to offer your team, however, they aren’t as great for the environment—or your sustainability efforts. With about 85% of all plastic waste ending up in landfills, the best bet for your business’s sustainability campaign is to ditch single-use plastics wherever you can. Invest in a set of reusable dishes for your company break room. While it may mean that your team will be responsible for washing their own dishes, it will cut down on plastic waste generated by your business, while also minimizing your office supply costs. If you’re not buying new plastic utensils every month, you can focus that budget on better things to grow your business.
“Of the 40 million tons of plastic waste generated in the United States last year, only five to six percent—or about two million tons—was recycled…. The rate of plastic recycling decreased since 2018, when it was at 8.7 percent.”
Single-use plastics don’t stop at disposable kitchenware, however. If your company offers single-use coffee and beverage brewing systems, those are a great thing to cut back on as well. Depending on your office dynamic, and the number of people sharing it, these individual coffee and filter pods can add up, financially and environmentally. Try opting for a classic espresso machine, a standard coffee maker, or even a “keg” of cold brew to be available on tap. These are all more sustainable options that still give your team access to a morning or mid-day boost. Of course, if your team really wants to keep the single-cup brewing systems, opt for a bag of coffee beans and a reusable filter pod. These may cost a bit more upfront but will save your business money in the long run without contributing more to single-use plastic usage.
Support Other Sustainable Businesses
If your team is making the effort to go green, shouldn’t you be relying on others to do the same? When working with your vendors or contractors, ask them about the ways that they’re prioritizing sustainability within their own businesses. Depending on your relationship with them, ask them if there’s anything they can do to encourage an eco-friendly approach to their business or investigate other vendors who are already prioritizing sustainability. You can put in the effort within your own business, but if you’re partnering with companies that don’t think twice about their impact on the environment, you’re only hurting your own efforts and reputation.
Businesses putting pressure on other businesses to follow in pursuit of sustainable practices is one of the best ways to encourage change throughout your entire industry. Make sure that you’re setting a good example for your vendors, customers, and other industry partners by demanding positive change from yourself, your team, and those you’re willing to work with.
“Globally, 85% of people indicate that they have shifted their purchase behavior towards being more sustainable in the past five years.”
Encourage Sustainability Outside the Office
It’s important to make greener changes as a company, but don’t forget that your business is only as large as the sum of its parts. If your team isn’t on board with embracing sustainability, you’ll not only face pushback, but you also run the risk of your office efforts being counteracted. Make sure your team understands their ability to contribute to environmentally conscious efforts within your organization. You can do this by encouraging a carpooling program, offering bike parking and storage for employees who choose greener commuting methods, or even rotating remote days. By minimizing the morning commute, or providing eco-friendly alternatives for your team, you can see big impacts on your business’s carbon footprint.
If it’s an option within your budget, you could also try offering commuter benefits to your team, like subway or bus passes. For some, offering paid time off to volunteer at charitable organizations can also be a way for your team to feel more connected to their environment. Even offering two days a year for your employees to spend their time on something intrinsically valuable, such as planting trees or raking up yard waste in the fall, can show your support for your employees as well as your ecosystem. With the growing importance of a climate-conscious workplace, you may find that offering benefits like this can also help support your recruitment and retention efforts.
“Around 70% of employees and job seekers say a sustainability program makes an employer more appealing, while 44% of executives consider their company’s climate initiatives to be an effective tool for recruitment and retention.”
How Should I Handle Sustainability Change Management?
Change is hard, and there’s no doubt that implementing changes within your organization is no small task. Depending on your business’s culture, longevity, and size, it may be tricky to get your employees to embrace the new changes you’re implementing. But there are some empirically proven change management techniques that you can use to make the transition less jarring for your team.
Convey the “Why”
In a world where research and understanding are at an all-time high due to the availability of technology, it’s important that your team has a deep understanding of the priority around your climate goals. If the idea is strictly to attract more customers and be more appealing to potential hires, that’s completely fine. If your region is heavily impacted by climate change and you want your business on the front lines of sustainability, that’s fine too. Whatever your reason, or combination of reasons, make sure that your entire organization understands the importance behind it. Clear communication behind large-scale corporate changes is one of the most difficult aspects of the change management process, but also one of the highest priorities. If everyone understands why this change is happening, everyone can find a way to own and incorporate those changes into their day-to-day work.
Keep Your Changes Top of Mind
Everyone will have their eyes on the leadership team when it comes to implementing corporate change. This means you don’t have the luxury of not following your own asks and new processes. If your business has moved away from paper forms for all your employees, your internal teams should be held to the same standards. Are you using digital invoices now? That’s fantastic, and a great way to show your customers how much you care about moving away from paper. Just make sure that your employees see you using digital employee evaluation forms during their annual reviews, too. If you’ve opted to take a day out of the office to volunteer at a local community garden, don’t expect your employees to show up if you’ll be skipping out. Pack up your trusted gardening shears and get ready to find out the favorite veggie of every single member of your team. In other words, as a leader in the business, you need to walk the walk if you plan on talking the talk.
Celebrate Every Milestone
Nothing makes change more difficult than not seeing progress. Make sure that you’re not just tracking your sustainability improvements within leadership meetings; fill the rest of your team in on the successes—and the failures. Again, change is hard. And not every choice or change is going to be perfectly executed. When you come across the things that are working, make sure you fill the whole team in on the changes. This can be publicly tracking milestones and when they’re accomplished, such as the total number of plastic water bottles eliminated by offering a water dispensing system instead of a vending machine. You can also create communication channels within your organization, such as a digital communication platform or eNewsletter, that calls out progress or even highlights specific individuals for being champions of the changes. There are no wins too small to celebrate!
About GoFormz
As a company passionate about sustainability, GoFormz is proud to be a digital forms solution for every industry. We believe that everyone should be able to fill out their forms online, delivering products and services that redefine how people and businesses collect and process data. No matter how entrenched in paper forms you may feel, GoFormz is the only digital forms provider that can create an exact digital replica of your existing paper forms, and ease your transition to a more sustainable way of doing business. Complete with an open API and multiple native integrations, GoFormz gives you the ability to get your form data exactly where you need it.
