It's time to put your sustainability strategy into action

It doesn’t matter what industry your business is in – there are always things you can do to make it more sustainable.

Now more than ever, business owners are looking at what they can do to help the environment and stop climate change. A sustainability action plan will help you to analyse where changes can be made.

Your action plan should include everything from the energy you use, to your waste and recycling, flexible working arrangements for your staff, their commutes and more. Your employees, stakeholders, suppliers and sometimes even your customers can contribute to the plan to help your business meet the sustainable goals that you set.

It’s a good idea to do some research to understand the key principles for becoming a sustainable business in your sector. This will help you to identify activities that you could change to a more sustainable way of working.

Make amends to your company policies and create a mission statement. This will keep your business accountable and will motivate all your employees and stakeholders to succeed with the goals that have been set.

As your sustainability strategy develops, make sure your business goals are SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. For example; you may have old strip lighting within your office space but you want to work towards reducing your business energy usage by 30% over a period of 12 months. That will mean replacing the strip lights to LED lighting and considering adding motion sensors too.

There is a lot of information available to help business owners with their sustainability journey and we too are able to help you adopt greener credentials and lower your carbon footprint. You may want to consider The Co-operatives Bank’s Renewable Energy Funding Scheme, which allows our business customers to invest in sustainable technologies which will help to improve the sustainability and energy efficiency of your business.

You can use the funding for many projects such as:

• Relocating your current premises to a more energy efficient premises
• Changing to a more energy efficient boiler or heating system
• Improving your recycling scheme
• Adding solar panels to your buildings
• Investing in electric vehicles for your fleet of company vehicles.

Finally, it’s really important that you keep your staff and customers informed as you make changes and start to see the benefits of making your business more sustainable.

Keep reviewing your impact, keep monitoring and keep progressing to becoming a sustainable business.