Sustainability is, of course, a hot topic in business now, and rightly so. With more and more consumers requiring the brands they purchase to have some type of sustainability program in place, being able to meet these demands has proven to be a lucrative endeavour as far as sales go, not to mention allowing them to cut down on their carbon footprint and reduce their impact on the environment.

Win-win, right? Of course, there are always going to be benefits to increasing sustainability within any type of business; however, for those companies focused on making positive changes and seeing through their climate manifesto, not just paying lip service and hoping the bare minimum is enough, there can be often overlooked areas that will reduce your ability to hit your sustainability goals and work towards any targets you have set your company.

Suppliers

You might be doing your part in improving sustainability, but are your suppliers doing their part, too? Knowing what their stance is on climate change, how they plan to tackle their contribution and what policies they have in effect, if any, can allow you to make more informed choices over who to do business with and who to avoid. 

It doesn’t matter what industry you are in; there are always more sustainable practices for operations carried out. You want to partner with suppliers who have the same experience as you and can prove they are working forward to a more sustainable future. Whether it’s your Bulk Chemical Manufacturer, the baker who supplies your bread and cakes for your coffee shop, your delivery partners, or you’re anyone else, check out their policies and ensure that they, too, are putting sustainability into what they do to help you backup your claims and reach your own goals.

Electronics and Digital Partners

Did you know the UK produces over 100,000 tonnes of digital waste annually? Much like standard waste, electronics that are discarded incorrectly can take many years to break down, if at all, as they contaminate the environment while they’re sitting in landfills.

Not disposing of your electronic waste correctly can massively impact the environment and create a bigger problem. You need to look at how to safely recycle or repurpose your old electronics, following guidelines to help you remove the waste from products you no longer require.

On top of the waste produced by your old or obsolete electronics, you need to look at the digital partners you use for your software and internet usage. It’s often touted that going digital is better for the environment, and in many ways, it is. You typically use fewer resources such as less paper, less printing, no stationery, etc. However, electronic resources can often require a considerable amount of electricity to power, whether for your in-house digital use, the company you use to host your website or your partners who supply your software, cyber security, and more.

Check with any companies you use for your work to see if they have any sustainability policies and how they offset their usage to keep the operations running. It can be via planting trees to help reduce CO2, using solar or wind-generated electricity to power their company or cutting down on their digital activity to consume less energy. Find out what they are doing to combat the increasing energy use for digitalisation and maybe incorporate these into who you work with.

Social Sustainability

Social sustainability is managing your business and its operations’ impact on people’s physical and emotional well-being. It’s about doing what is best for everyone involved with your company, whether they’re directors, employees, managers or customers.

You need to examine how your company impacts them and how it can improve things. Knowing what the current generation wants and needs, as well as preserving things for future generations, is building social responsibility and sustainability into what you do and putting your people and those you serve at the forefront of your business.

It could be that as a local restaurant, you use local suppliers and staff to help boost the economy in the regional areas while also reducing miles travelled in getting food and supplies to your restaurant and travel for employees, too. It could be that as a national company, you work alongside employees in each locality to see precisely what challenges they are facing, how they overcome them and how you can assist them to make their time at work better for both employees and clients too, or it can be making your working environment safer to boost your reputation and wastefulness and work to a more efficient work model and cut costs and your social and environmental impact in one fell swoop.

Working sustainability into business isn’t always easy; however, with more employees and consumers wanting to see companies take responsibility and control over their impact on the world, neglecting to adhere to your carbon footprint can negatively impact your business and affect your ability to keep moving forward. These are just three areas that can be often looked at when it comes to sustainability and are well worth investing in.