Green Goals: 5 Eco-Friendly Objectives to Set for Your Business in 2024
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Sustainability is no longer a passing fad – it is a crucial responsibility for any business that wants to achieve long-term success. It’s also easily achievable without major investment or a huge change in your standard operating procedures. To help your business step into 2024 in eco-friendly style, here are five green goals to work toward:
1. Boost Your Business Beyond Profit
One incredibly powerful step towards being more sustainable as a business is sourcing products and services from suppliers who are committed to fair wages, eco-friendly production methods, and ethical labor practices. They may also be part of charitable or social change projects in your community. By expanding your focus beyond profit margins and looking to set social procurement goals, you can contribute to a sustainable professional ecosystem that benefits your business, the wider community, and the environment.
2. Engage Stakeholders
Engaging stakeholders with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is incredibly powerful when it comes to driving sustainability in your business. CSR covers the responsibility you bear for how your business activities impact society. It encompasses your social, ethical, and environmental impact, taking into consideration all relevant stakeholders.
By integrating CSR into your business strategy and engaging stakeholders, you will cultivate a culture of environmental awareness and responsibility. You’ll also contribute meaningfully to society, all while boosting your brand’s reputation. Unlike social procurement, which is more focused on the procurement process, CSR includes a much broader range of initiatives and practices that your stakeholders will want to be involved in for a plethora of reasons.
3. Go Paperless
Going paperless is one of the easiest ways to do better for the environment as a business in 2024. Currently, businesses in the USA waste $8 million dollars on managing paper every single year. So, sorting out your paper situation should not only help the planet but also reduce your bottom line. In other words, it’s one of those rare win-win scenarios we’re always seeking as business owners!
Digitizing your paper systems will take time and a long changeover process. Still, it’s worth it for the positive impact on the environment, your outgoings, and the sustainability kudos your brand will gain from the change.
4. Transition To Renewable Energy
Annually, midsize and small office buildings in America use around 15kWh of electricity per square foot. By switching everything that uses energy to sustainable options (such as switching standard bulbs to LED bulbs), you can drastically reduce the environmental impact of your office. If you can invest in renewable energy created with solar panels, ground source heat pumps, or even wind turbines (depending on your setup), you can do even better for the environment (and save a lot of money long-term). You might even get money paid to your company for extra energy your renewables generate that goes back to the grid.
5. Waste Not, Want Not
The average office worker generates about two pounds of waste a day. Your business as a whole will generate more waste outside of these individual employee totals. Combine these forces, and that’s a lot of waste to contend with. However, it also presents an easy opportunity for making a tangible difference.
Minimizing your waste with recycling, repurposing, and reduction practices will help your business significantly decrease its environmental footprint in 2024. Get your team involved, make a game of it, and see how close you can get to zero waste by the end of the year.
With the right eco-friendly objectives, your business could see lower bills, enhanced brand awareness, improved social impact, and a brighter future on the horizon. Here’s to going green with ease in 2024.
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