Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Henry Brown

People are becoming more conscious of the environmental effects of their daily activities. According to a global survey conducted in 2014, more than half of customers were willing to pay more for goods and services from businesses that follow environmentally sustainable practices. By doing so, a company not only helps the world but also improves its profit margins.

It is vital to bear in mind that if you market yourself as an environmentally friendly business, you must be one. Greenwashing your consumers (false claims of sustainability) is worse than not promising to be green in the first place. It makes you look inauthentic and untrustworthy – and that is not a good look for any business.

Work from home where possible

Because of the Coronavirus pandemic, more people than ever are working from home, and that may well be one of the more positive things that come out of the situation. The more people that work from home, the fewer cars on the road. It also stops businesses from using quite so much energy at work that can save them some money as well. Of course, to do this you need to ensure that you have the appropriate technology infrastructure in place and that you have strategies to support your employees, but generally, many industries can work from home these days, as the pandemic has shown.

Look at your business practices and make changes 

Look at some of your core business practices and see if there are any ways that you can make changes. For example, you could look at switching out your packaging for something a little more sustainable from https://plaspack.com/sustainability/. If you do most of your marketing usually traditional paper methods of brochures and leaflets, look at swapping to digital methods such as emails. If you print out paper invoices and receipts, perhaps consider emailing them to your customers instead to save on paper and printing.

Reduce the number of single-use products that you use

When you’re busy at work, it’s fun to stock your desk with as many disposable items as possible, from single-serve coffee pods to disposable plastic cups. We now know that single-use plastic is one of the most pressing environmental problems, but it is also one of the most straightforward issues to address. Purchase some low-cost, branded mugs and encourage both staff and visitors to make drinks and use those instead. Also, consider installing a water fountain so that employees can fill up their own water bottles instead of buying them from the shops.

Encourage staff to come to work without their car

The fewer cars on the road, the better the environment. Of course, above we mentioned about working from home where possible, but if that is not feasible for your business, consider ways of encouraging your staff to leave the cars at home. Perhaps you could offer discounts or incentives to those who travel via public transport or facilitate cycling to work by installing secure bike shelters and a place for people to store their helmets and cycle gear.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.