What are some things a business can do to become more sustainable without it costing too much?
Helen. Surry Hills.

Hi Helen, it is great to see the business people asking questions this month. The two main areas that we can work proactively in to reduce our environmental impact is are our working lives and private lives and let’s face it: many of us spend almost as much time at work as we do in sleep and recreational time combined!

Regardless of whether we are focused on work or home we can identify a clear divide between making changes that address our buildings and equipment, which often involve higher costs to achieve, and making changes in our behaviour, which does not need to cost much,  and that can achieve outcomes straight away. The challenge in behavioural change actions is in sustaining the activity is ensuring that we don’t backslide to the old or worse behavior than we were at before. So how to do that?

Work out where you would like to be with it. That is, what your business will ‘look like’ once you have reached your objective. Get other people at work to contribute to the development and documentation of this Vision, develop a socially binding Environment Policy by which you can all be guided when you are making decisions at work and then set yourself measurable targets. I believe that it is important that everyone, every section or department and every manager and employee has at least one thing that they commit to achieving an environmental improvement. The little bits will really add up!

If you work at continual improvement and being honest with yourselves about how you are tracking then you will make progress – let’s face it you aren’t dummies are you? Establish an agreement that financial savings achieved through staff behavioural improvements will be monitored and allocated to a fund for investing in fitting with the changes that will move you even further ahead towards your ultimate goal. Don’t forget the occasional celebration morning tea or beers after work when you reach your milestones.

There are also some excellent free or heavily subsidised government programs in NSW that have been established to provide support to businesses such as the excellent Sustainability Advantage program. If you get back to me via Tribe with a little more info about your business I would be happy to give some more specific industry based suggestions.