This Earth Day, the Green Economy team got together to discuss all our top tips to help businesses and individuals reduce their carbon footprint and make sustainable decisions. From volunteer days to advice on engaging your team at work, here’s what we came up with.
One of the most important steps in your sustainability journey is engaging your team! If you haven’t engaged your organisation at every level with the why and the how of environmental issues and sustainability, introducing positive changes will be much harder. Think about the different ways you can spark people’s interest such as group training, film screenings or other green social events and staff led green initiatives. We run training sessions including Journey To Net Zero and Carbon Literacy which help organisations come up with ideas for engagement and sustainability initiatives. You can achieve huge carbon (& cost!) savings just through behaviour change at work, and an actively engaged team will be far more successful when introducing low carbon projects and making a real impact.
Find our about our Journey To Net Zero training programme here.
It has never been more important to put on the ‘carbon glasses’ and look at the ways you can bring in low-carbon habits and actions into your everyday life. The best place to start is to measure your carbon emissions including emissions from the energy you use, how you travel, or the things you buy. This can be done as an individual or as a business.
There are plenty of free resources to kick off this journey, such as the WWF and the SME Climate Hub as well as support provided by the Decarbonisation team here at Green Economy. Identifying avoidable emissions at work and at home is now a necessity at local, national and international levels. Ultimately, creating a global low-carbon culture that limits global warming will limit the already seismic impacts of rising temperatures on our social-ecological systems.
Access our Net Zero Toolkit for practical tips, tools and advice on measuring your carbon emissions.
Having access to a natural green space has many proven benefits, particularly in relation to mental health benefits. If you have a garden, there are plenty of things you can do to encourage pollinators and biodiversity in your space which will have wider benefits for your area. I have a hive of bees in my garden, though there are around 270 native bee species that need our help. You can use a range of plants that flower year-round, cut out garden sprays such as herbicides and pesticides and allow wilder areas in your garden, to create habitat for the endless species of insects and animals across England.
There are a range of climate volunteer opportunities available across the UK, particularly projects focussed on rewilding and habitat restoration. Have a chat with your team and work out which environmental improvements you’d like to see in your area, then volunteer your time to a relevant cause. Perhaps you want to see less plastic pollution in rivers, or more trees in the parks. Environmental charities work year-round to ensure these projects are delivered, and they’re always looking for volunteers.
Your website is probably your first point of contact, or it will be the first impression people make of you. Switching to a green web host ensures your website is running on clean, renewable energy, reducing the carbon associated with each click or page visit. It’s a very quick and effective way of reducing your carbon footprint.
Looking for more tips to cut your website's emissions? Read our 7 steps for cutting emissions from the web.
Funding is one of the main barriers businesses and households face when trying to access green technologies. Find out if your local council is offering green grants for home retrofit projects, and look at the government’s available funds for businesses who want to generate their own renewable energy. By accessing the right finance you can reduce the burden of these projects and focus more on the positive, climate-friendly outcomes.
Check out our Energy Efficiency Grant for Greater Manchester SMEs.
It’s been very well-documented that diets high in meat and dairy products generally have higher carbon footprints than those that rely on local, organic produce and vegetable-based meals. You don’t have to entirely alter the way you eat, but it’s worth considering what your diet consists of and where you can easily make sustainable changes. Veggie diets produce 2.5 times less carbon emissions than meat diets, use up less land than is needed to rear livestock, and are healthy if managed correctly.
Start by learning the difference between fundamental carbon terms. So many organisations miscommunicate their climate achievements because they aren’t using the right terminology. For example, zero carbon means emissions have been reduced to zero without using offsets, but you see organisations who are using offsets claiming to be zero carbon when they should be saying “carbon neutral”.
Register for our upcoming webinar, Demystifying Greenwashing.
Indoor plants provide many benefits in a workspace, from improving indoor air quality to reducing stress levels. Does your office have no out-door space at all? Think about some planters, hanging baskets or a plain-ole indoor desk plant. Improving air quality can be a great boost to productivity and mood. Did you know poor air quality from a small group of people breathing through the day can have the same effect as drinking two pints of beer?
Encourage everybody in your team to submit and carry out a carbon pledge. This is a commitment to a sustainable lifestyle change, or an action plan to reduce your carbon footprint. For example, you might pledge to switch to a greener bank that doesn’t invest in fossil fuels, or you could pledge to cycle to work rather than drive. Carbon pledges are an effective way to get people thinking about their climate impact.
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