Develop a Small Business Sustainability Plan
Becoming sustainable as a small business is the perfect way to combat the climate crisis and help address climate change. Whether you are just starting out or have been in business for years, sustainable growth strategies are increasingly important to engage employees, inspire customers, and build a brand. For businesses looking to do their part to make our planet a greener and safer place, making a commitment to sustainability is the smart move.
If you are looking for different information on adjacent steps to your company’s sustainability journey, click on the links below:
1. Why Businesses Should Embrace Sustainability
2. 35 Mission Statements that Inspire Sustainability
3. Write a Sustainable Business Strategy
4. 21 Sustainable Business Practices at Work
Why small businesses should care about sustainability?
Sustainability is a top priority for all small businesses today including the small business owner. The impact of climate change affects all businesses and underscores the importance of a triple bottom line.
A small business needs to maintain financial stability while meeting its green goals. When developing a sustainable enterprise plan, you may see a variety of long term benefits.
Attracting funding and investments
Securing funds for your small business can be very beneficial. Investment managers recognize the value and benefits of a sustainable strategy to de-risk their investments and enhance their returns.
Get on brand!
Customers want to buy from brands that are sustainable and have a positive environmental impact. In fact, over 66% of consumers would pay more for eco-friendly products. Creating and promoting a sustainability strategy can help improve your brand reputation and customer loyalty.
Save money
Implementing sustainable practices can also save your business money by reducing waste, improving efficiency, and decreasing water and energy consumption.
Boost company culture
When you focus on sustainability, you create a better workplace for your employees. Studies show that happy and healthy employees lead to higher productivity levels. Sustainable practices can help improve employee morale, engagement, and commitment.
Meeting the demands of your customers
Consumers care for the environment and want small businesses to do the same. In fact, a recent Study shows that 33% of customers are willing to pay more for sustainability as demand grows for environmentally-friendly alternatives.
An increasing number of discerning consumers only do businesses with companies who have good sustainability practices. Demonstrating that your company cares. Develop a business sustainability pla.
Complying with the law
As governments continues to introduce new environmental regulations, businesses need to operate sustainably. Future legislation will likely impact small business. To stay compliant with new regulations, small businesses should plan.
Attract Talent
High-performing employees are attracted to sustainable companies. To encourage employees to stay and keep employee engagement high, a focus on environmental and social issues is important. Highlighting your corporate sustainability plan and sustainable practices can help small businesses compete for talent.
The Three Pillars of Corporate Sustainability
To create a small business sustainability plan, small business will need to focus on both environmental issues and economic drivers. Sustainable business practices reach across three pillars aimed at decreasing shareholder risk and enhancing stakeholder value.
Three Pillars of Corporate Sustainability
The Economic Pillar
Sustainable businesses have a clear understanding of how to generate annual revenue, profits, and ROI for their owners or shareholders. Other key performance indicators include how it will pay for its investments in environmental and social programs.
For the most part, their bottom line is something that small business already have in hand. Other activities associated with the economic pillar include governance, compliance, and risk management.
The Social Pillar
The social pillar hinges on the concept of social license. This means its business practices are socially responsible and have the approval of employees, customers, and communities.
For employees, businesses focus on engagement, retention, flexible scheduling, benefits, and opportunities for learning and development. For customers, the focus is often on a great customer experience, customer service, and customer engagement. For communities, they often launch philanthropy and community initiatives.
The Environmental Pillar
The environmental pillar is all about sustainability and the "triple bottom line" of profit, people, and, the planet.
A small business sustainability plan is different for every company but can include a focus on companies: carbon footprint, water quality and quantity, waste disposal, energy efficiency, air pollution, eco-friendly materials, recycled materials, energy costs, clean alternative energy sources, and even office supplies, plastic bottles, and recycling bins!
By tracking resource consumption through benchmarking, and making smart supply chain decisions, an organization can determine its spending and plan for the future based on a set standard.
Building a Small Business Sustainability Plan
Program planning and documentation are important to achieve a successful outcome. The leadership team should establish sustainable goals and visions for the company.
Appoint sustainability leads and a company green team to start researching and preparing the report. Teams should evaluate current sustainability performance and engage employees in gathering and understanding the current state of sustainability and planning the road ahead.
Understand your sustainability drivers
There is no one sustainability plan to suit all organizations. Every small business utilizes resources in different ways. Determine the corporate sustainability plan that makes the most sense for your business.
There are common objectives that all businesses share – minimizing waste and reducing carbon emissions. Business factors affecting sustainability are investors, customers, resource shortfalls, consumer preference, ROI for projects, regulatory measures and employee morale recruitment and retention, and brand equity.
Sustainability reporting
After a small business sustainability plan is implemented, it is crucial to track progress. Many businesses appoint a sustainability officer or team to manage this task. Sustainability reporting can take on many different forms but should always communicate how the company plans to improve moving forward.
Sustainability reports often answer these key questions:
What are the company's sustainability priorities?
What does the company want to achieve?
How will the company know if it is making progress?
What are the company's next steps?
Types of Sustainability Reporting
There are many different types of sustainability reporting. The most common include:
Greenhouse gas emissions inventory report
Water stewardship report
Sustainable product report
Supply chain report
Diversity and inclusion report
Many organizations choose to publish sustainability reports in addition to other annual reports. Like a corporate sustainability plan, sustainability reports are often used as a marketing tool to show investors, customers, and employees that the company is committed to social and environmental responsibility.
Publishing a Sustainability Plan Report
Organizations can choose to publish their sustainability plan report internally, externally, or both. An external report is made available to the public, usually on the company website. An internal report is circulated among employees and leadership.
The format of a small business sustainability plan report can vary depending on the company's preference. Reports can be published online, in print, or as an annual report supplement.
When deciding whether or not to publish a sustainability plan report, businesses should consider their audience and what type of information would be most useful. Sustainability plan reporting is a voluntary practice, but many businesses choose to do so because it is a way to show their commitment to social and environmental responsibility.
Benefits of publishing a sustainability report including a detailed description:
Demonstrating progress to stakeholders
Engaging employees in the sustainability process
Improving communication about sustainability initiatives
Fostering transparency and accountability
Building trust with stakeholders
Reputation enhancement
Creating a framework for improvement
It makes sense that there are also some challenges that organizations face when publishing sustainability plan reports such as:
Costs associated with reporting
Time required to gather data and prepare the report
Lack of standardization in reporting practices
Inaccurate or unreliable data
Misinterpretation of data by stakeholders
Difficulty comparing performance across sectors
Despite these challenges, many companies believe that the benefits of publishing a sustainability report outweigh the costs. Organizations that choose not to publish a sustainability report should still keep track of their progress on their sustainability plan and communicate their intentions for improvement to stakeholders.
Green Business Checklist
As business leaders, it is our responsibility to operate sustainably. To make that happen, we've created this easy-to-use sustainability checklist for small businesses. Activities in the economic, social, and environmental pillars are each represented in the checklist.
Energy efficiency
Reducing energy consumption is one of the best ways to reduce pollution and save money. Start by conducting an energy audit to find out how much energy you use and areas where your business can be more energy-efficient. Switch to natural resources such as energy-efficient lighting, heating, and cooling systems. Another great way to reduce energy consumption is to encourage employees to turn off lights, computers, and other electronics when they’re not in use.
Supply chain
Make sure everyone who supplies you shares your sustainable commitment and reflects that in their business practices. Find a better way to reduce carbon emissions in your supplier network, through local or nearest sources. Ensure everything that is sourced, manufactured, and sold is environmentally sound.
Pollution Prevention & Water Stewardship
Every business pollutes to some degree whether that be air or water. Managing pollution starts with understanding your impact on the environment and then removing waste. Supporting renewable water resources and practices is also important to become a green business.
It is also important to conserve water. Evaluate your organization's usage. Make changes to become more efficient. Properly maintain plumbing fixtures and appliances. Install low-flow faucets, showerheads, and toilets.
Product Design
Sustainable production starts with sustainable designs. Make sure the product design includes sustainable materials, renewable and eco-friendly resources. Material that may be recycled, regenerated, or bio-degradable without toxic substances. Find fair-trade partners to guarantee that your material is made by ethical partners that give fair wages to the employees.
Manufacturing & Production
Many businesses cause the most damage when constructing products. Industrial production and consumer manufacturing, in particular drive major emissions and waste. Now manufacturers can use smart technology for problem-solving to decrease their impact on the environment. Creating sustainable products starts with partnering with companies that have sustainable practices.
Procurement
Encourage your purchasing department to purchase sustainably sourced products only. Whenever possible get your products/services from a local supplier to support local communities or reduce transport.
Waste Reduction & Recycling
There are many ways to reduce the amount of waste your business produces. Start by evaluating your office’s waste management practices and see where improvements can be made. A few ideas are to recycle old items, reuse discarded items by giving them to local schools or charities and avoid single-use items. Go paperless, as possible.
Compost
Composting is another great way to reduce waste, especially for food industry businesses. Compost food scraps, paper products, and yard waste to cut down on the amount of garbage your business produces.
Business Travel & Commuting
The commute on a work day can be the largest carbon emitter in a worker's lifecycle. Encouraging employees to carpool, bike, or take public transit can help reduce traffic congestion and pollution. You can also create a telecommuting policy to allow employees to work from home. If your business has a fleet of vehicles, consider switching to hybrid or electric cars.
Air travelers account for about 25% of carbon emissions responsible for global warming. Employers can consider telecommuting and video conferencing as alternatives to business travel. When business travel is necessary, choose the most efficient transportation method possible and purchase carbon offsets.
Packaging
EPA figures show that packaging accounts for about 37% of all landfill waste. Reduce waste by decreasing the environmental impact of your good's packaging and shipping processes by modifying your packaging methods. Product packaging should also be easily recyclable or biodegradable.
Renewable energy
Using renewable energy is one of the best ways to reduce your business’s carbon footprint. You can install solar panels, wind turbines, or geothermal systems to power your business with clean energy. You can also purchase renewable energy credits to offset your business’s energy usage.
Eco-friendly cleaning products
Cleaning products are one of the most toxic items in our homes and businesses. They often contain harmful chemicals that can be released into the air and water. Choose eco-friendly cleaning products that are made with natural ingredients and are safe for the environment.
The Bottom Line
A small business sustainability plan is no longer a "nice to have" for small organizations – it's a necessity. To build trust with consumers and investors, businesses must be transparent about their environmental and social impact. As mentioned earlier, a sustainability plan has long term benefits such as helping businesses save money, find new growth opportunities, and avoid risks.
There are many ways businesses can become more sustainable, from reducing waste to using renewable energy. The most important thing is to get started, do what you can to make a difference, and track your results. This resource contains ideas to make your business score well in environmental sustainability. Need more help to make sense of where to start?
