One of the biggest challenges when starting your journey to Net-Zero is knowing where to start. By following the guidance on this page you can take those first steps on your journey, following in the footsteps of other businesses and learning from what they have discovered. Before starting those steps, take a look at the fantastic animation created by Chamber and BCL Board Member Eye Film, which helpfully breaks down how to start your journey.
How to approach Climate Change
Step 1 Calculate your carbon footprint with a carbon tracker
Step 2 Create an action plan and engage your staff
Step 3 Look at your energy suppliers and switch to renewables
Step 4 Take a look at transport and commuting
Step 5 Focus on what you do with your waste
Step 6 Consider offsetting your carbon emissions
Top tips to start you off on your journey
- Firstly, head to our Carbon Calculator Tab. This will help you on your journey by giving guidance to measure your emissions and create a high-impact action plan
- Create a Carbon Policy to list on your website, and share with your staff and customers. This should outline your company’s key environmental impacts as well as list your actions to reduce them
- Create an Action Plan for in-house which shows how you will measure and reduce and what staff member is allocated to action. Carbon Charter has some great tips on how to introduce an Environmental Policy and Action Plan. By doing this, it will also ensure you have the correct staff engagement
- Staff engagement is paramount in making changes. For example, create a dedicated Climate Leader within the organisation, implement a suggestion box and add ‘turn off’ stickers on lights and computers
- Go digital and save paper – simple changes and if you need to print, use recycled paper
- Switch off…..one of the simplest ways to reduce energy consumption is to switch lights/computers and anything that uses electricity off when you leave a room at home and in the office
- Change the way you power by changing to heat pumps, solar panels, and efficient lighting. How about changing to sensor lights instead?
- Recycling– general waste creates huge amounts of emissions. Reusing products helps and having dedicated recycling disposal helps enormously
- Upcycle – did you know coffee grounds can be turned into body soaps and scrubs
- Get sharing…..this can be rehoming or recycling unwanted office/home equipment
- Reduce business travel and enable home working to reduce staff commuting. Do you need to travel to meet in person or can you hold the meeting by Zoom? Thinking about how we travel is so important to the planet, can you walk or get the bus instead? Did you know about Lifeshare…..it is a platform that enables users to car share
- Electric Charging Vehicles/Bikes. (Hint – encourage staff with walk-to-work schemes)
- Save water – simple
- Do your current suppliers have the right sustainability credentials, if not, it’s time to switch?
- Go greener – switching to a green energy tariff sends a clear message to your energy supplier that there is a demand for clean, low carbon electricity, which drives investment in renewables and helps to decarbonise grid electricity. Octopus Energy and Greenenergyuk are doing great things
- Ditch single-use plastics – provide staff with reusable coffee cups/water bottles
If you have any tips or stories to share with us, we would love to hear from you. Please email us [email protected]
