Ways to lessen your organisation’s impact on the environment

We recently asked creatives on LinkedIn how important is a company’s commitment to the environment and sustainability when choosing where to work. Here’s how the results broke down:

• 14% of respondents said it was very important and they would only work for environmentally sustainable companies.
• 60% of respondents said that they would prefer to work for environmentally sustainable companies (but sometimes that doesn’t always work out).
• 26% of respondents said it wasn’t a priority and that they would take whatever job pays the most.

With a good portion of this group highlighting the importance of sustainability in the workplace, it may be time to consider what your business can do to improve in this area. If a top talent has a choice between two businesses and the one thing that separates them is their impact on the environment, then for many candidates, it’s an easy choice to pick the more environmentally friendly one.

Ready to make a change? If you’re stumped and not sure where to begin, we’ve got a few suggestions to get the ball rolling.

Review your suppliers

From electricity all the way to the accounting software you use – take a look at them all and see how they perform from an environmental standpoint. Their websites are the best place to start – see if they talk about being carbon neutral, certified B Corp or 1% for the Planet members, supporting environmental charities or have corporate volunteer days.

If you can’t find any information about it, reach out and ask. Use the information you’ve found to decide whether you want to keep that business as a supplier or potentially swap to someone more environmentally friendly.

Develop a sustainable travel policy

This is good if people in your organisation travel regularly for meetings and other business needs.

Review your organisation’s business travel needs and ask yourself, “can any of this be done virtually or over the phone?”. Sometimes meetings need to be in person, but if there’s a bunch of things that can be done over a video chat, then make that a sticking point in your sustainable travel policy.

If people need to travel to meetings, make sure to have stipulations around the kind of travel that is preferable. If it’s within the same city, is it possible to catch public transport or walk, rather than Uber or drive? If someone needs to go interstate or overseas, include off-setting the emissions from the flight in your travel policy.

Have regular volunteer days

Good for the environment AND for team building? That’s a win-win!

Schedule in regular volunteer days for your team where you work on different projects to help the environment. Think beach or park clean ups, tree planting, working on a farm – there’s so many organisations that need an extra hand to do their part for the planet. Do some research and choose one that resonates the most with your team.

Get certified

There are a number of different certifications that your business can get to show that you’re serious about taking care of the planet, such as:

• Carbon neutral/net zero certification – check out how we went carbon neutral here
• 1% for the Planet
• Eco certification
• B Corp – which looks at your business as a whole, not just what you do for the environment

There are many certifications out there, so do your research, consider them carefully and decide which one works best for your business.

These are just a few ideas of what you can do to help improve your organisation’s impact on the environment – and help attract some of the best talent at the same time. Do some research, talk to other businesses that do sustainability well and pull inspiration from them.

If you want more tips on what else candidates are looking for from an organisation in their next role, check out our resource, The Very Useful Hiring Guide. And if you’re looking for a new hire (or a new role role), get in touch today at hello@creativenatives.com.au.