New year’s resolutions are made to be broken, right? Well, if you make them unreasonable, like going to the gym seven times a week, or giving up chocolate, it’s perfectly understandable that they don’t last much past the middle of January.
But what about making resolutions for your business – resolutions that could not only benefit your organisation by cutting energy use and enhancing your green credentials, but could also help the environment and contribute to Scotland’s goal of achieving net zero by 2045?
We have been talking to our experts and with their help we have put together a list of five resolutions that you could make for 2024. You may not feel able to take them all on board, but committing yourself to one or two changes during the year will earn you a big green thumbs up.
1. Start a monitoring and measuring regime
With energy prices more volatile than ever, it’s never been as important to closely measure and monitor your business’s energy use.
Download our free energy usage tracking spreadsheet to start today.
2. Motivate your colleagues to save energy
Even if you don’t know what to do or where to start, talk to your team about where you want to get to and be realistic about the timeframe for getting there. You will need their support on that journey. Our staff engagement toolkit will be a big help. It contains a selection of free resources, including posters, stickers, staff training presentations and quizzes.
3. Speak to Green Network for Businesses members
This network has over 300 members showcasing the work they have already done to save energy, cut waste and reduce costs. Use the network to speak to similar businesses and learn from their project successes.
4. Put together an environmental policy
If you don’t already have one, now would be a good time to write one. And if you do have one, take some time this year to revisit it to see if it needs updating. A good environmental policy will help you communicate your environmental credentials to your staff and customers. And it doesn’t need to be a difficult job.
If you can sum up your organisation’s commitment to reducing its environmental impact in less than one paragraph, you’re already halfway to formulating an effective environmental policy. The most important things to bear in mind are:
- Keep it brief, and to the point – one side of A4 is enough
- Ditch the jargon and meaningless platitudes – if you’re bored writing it, they’re bored reading it
We have produced some examples to help get you started.
5. Train to become a CPD-certified Green Champion
Our online Green Champions training course is already helping organisations across Scotland to go green by providing knowledge, tried-and-tested techniques, best practice examples, and free tools and templates. Written by resource efficiency experts, each short Green Champions training module packs in knowledge and experience that will accelerate your understanding of the benefits of resource efficiency.
Sign up to gain the skills and knowledge more than 4,500 other professionals have already learnt through the Green Champions training course.
6. Calculate your business’s carbon footprint
Understanding your carbon footprint is the first step towards planning on reducing it. And it puts you on the road to developing your own net zero plans. Now has never been a better time to do so. These calculations are interesting to do and can highlight areas in your business where you could be a little kinder to the planet – while saving money on your energy bills. If, collectively, we are going to succeed in the ambition of being net zero by 2045, the onus falls on every business to do their bit. Find out how to get started here.
So, there you have it. Six new year’s resolutions that you can make and keep for 2024. Your business and your energy bills will thank you.
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