How to use environmental strategy to inspire your employees
Making sure that your company’s operations are environmentally sustainable should be a basic priority for every purposeful leader, regardless of your size or sector. But that’s not to say that leaving a light footprint is simply a tick-box exercise. With the right approach, your company’s environmental strategy can energise and motivate all of your employees.
Purpose spoke to William Richardson, managing director of environmental business consultancy Green Element, to learn more.
Q. What’s the secret to getting your environmental strategy right?
Early on, I realised how necessary it is for all employees to be motivated to support and implement any strategy — from the cleaners to the MD.
One of the earlier projects we handled was for a worldwide advertising agency. They were already convinced of the need for business to take its share of responsibility in trying to improve their carbon footprint, but uncertain as to how to make significant inroads into achieving this.
We helped the senior leadership to develop a plan that involved and engaged every employee. In one year, by restructuring their travel arrangements, they made savings of £57,000 and of 260,000 kg carbon emissions together with increased efficiency in utilities and stationery use they achieved annual savings of approximately £14 per employee, equivalent to £7,000 annual savings.
What’s the best way for leaders to decide how much to invest in achieving environmental sustainability? After all, not every purpose-driven business has a primarily environmental mission.
As passionate as we at Green Element are about saving the planet, we are only too well aware of the importance of the financial viability of any project. The beauty of knowing that environmental sustainability sits comfortably with financial viability is one of the big plusses of being involved in environmental protection.
Even taking into account management consultancy fees, cost savings are inevitably made year on year. And the good thing is that each individual can have a clear conscience about his/her contribution to global environmental sustainability. So I have to ask, why wouldn’t every business ‘go green’?
Q. So this is relevant for all businesses and all leaders?
Yes — in fact, I love the diversity of businesses we work with: a large laundry firm, an abattoir, several technology companies, an international chartered accountancy firm with multiple sites, and a transport company, to name but a few. We also work with an international university and whilst reviewing all the bills, we discovered that the university had been incorrectly charged the climate change levy tax on its buildings, which resulted in a saving of £65,000 in addition to the £27,000 efficiency savings relating to water and electricity consumption — not only good for the environment but good for education!
But it’s not all about saving money, though of course it helps. The leaders of these companies are justifiably proud of their enlightened attitude towards saving the planet, which in turn informs their appreciation of their employees who have been involved and who appear to be much happier because of it. I genuinely believe it produces a ‘feel-good’ factor amongst the workforce.
Q. What motivates you personally?
I think my detailed knowledge of the increasingly worrying aspects of the detrimental impacts of business on the environment spurred me on to want to do something really positive to help make companies think about what they could do to neutralise some of this impact, whilst actually saving money in the process. I realised early on that I would need extra help specialising in different areas of the process, and I now have five employees — all of them totally dedicated to the belief in Green Element’s core values and the efficacy of our methods.
One of my proudest achievements is being eligible to become a member of the global B Corp movement, whose ethos not only addresses environmental issues but also embraces ethical practices with regard to employees and a company’s community responsibilities. B Corp status is akin to a Fair Trade certification for businesses and Green Element is equipped to guide clients to achieve membership of B Corp.
Q. What’s next for Green Element?
The most exciting news is that we have launched Compare Your Footprint, an online Carbon Benchmarking Tool, which is the first comprehensive online carbon calculator which compares your company with others in your industry, whilst providing a catalyst for creating a leaner and more efficient organisation — the best bit is, it requires no additional data compared to a standard online carbon footprint tool.
To learn more about Green Element and Compare Your Footprint, visit www.greenelement.co.uk and https://compareyourfootprint.com.
This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2017 print issue of Purpose. For more on creative leadership, problem solving and purposeful business, please visit thehouse.co.uk or get in touch at hello@thehouse.co.uk.
