Environmental and sustainability policies

An Environmental policy can provide significant benefits to your business, including:

• helping you to stay within the law

• keeping employees informed about their environmental roles and responsibilities

• improving cost control

• improving your monitoring of environmental impacts

• improving the efficiency of your processes

An environmental policy can also highlight cost savings, as well as more environmentally friendly ways of working. Be aware, however, that the benefits are unlikely to materialise unless you put your environmental policy into practice. By setting up an action plan, you can set out the actions to be carried out to help your business meet its environmental objectives, when this will be done and the responsibilities of those involved.

Your organisation will need an environmental policy that reflects your specific needs and practices. Once you have identified any harmful actions, you can consider ways to minimise the damage.

Reducing energy use

There are a number of things you can do to use less energy, for example, you could put up posters to remind people to turn the lights off when they leave an empty office. It may even be possible to get hold of more energy-efficient light bulbs or have a professional energy audit carried out.

Reducing water use

You can reduce your organisation's water use by checking for and rectifying any dripping taps or pipes. You could also examine your organisation's toilet facilities to see if you can install a more efficient flushing system.

Minimising waste and recycling more

If your organisation creates a lot of waste, there are a number of actions you can take to create less in the future, for example, recycling all the waste you can. Moreover, try to buy products which are not over-packaged and buy local produce, or products that are environmentally friendly/from sustainable sources.

If your organisation prints a lot of documents, you can also reduce your carbon footprint by encouraging staff to print double-sided.

Promoting the use of non-motorised transport

Encourage staff to walk, cycle or share lifts wherever possible.

Raising awareness of environmental issues is vital to the success of any environmental policy. All employees can be involved in the development and implementation of the policy from the outset and should be given the opportunity to voice their concerns.

Making your environmental policy publicly available also provides an opportunity to showcase how environmentally aware and proactive you are. You can place your policy on your website so that interested parties can read it. Notice boards, staff meetings and intranet pages can also be used to communicate your environmental policy.

Once your environmental policy is in place, it’s a good idea to carry out regular reviews and monitor the policy regularly. This will help to ensure your business activities comply with the policy and also provide an opportunity to set more specific targets. Bear in mind that if your business activities or operations change significantly, the policy may need to be amended.

It's a good idea to involve staff in the reviewing and monitoring process. If staff are expected to deliver on environmental policy commitments, they'll be a good source of ideas for improvements.