Did you know that 67% of employees want to work for a more sustainably focused business? Particularly if you have younger workers. So empowering them to help your business reduce emissions is a great way to boost morale and engagement. This can lead to better productivity and reducing emissions often leads to reducing costs!

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Here are 7 pointers on how you can go about it with your employees:

Give responsibility for the task to an employee or action team

Nominate an employee to take ownership or create a small action team.

Let them know it is important to you and the business, and you will support improvements, where they are reasonable. 

Ask them to reach out to your Industry Association

Ask your employee or action team to check whether your industry association has partnered with an emissions program provider or is planning to.

Associations are increasingly partnering with providers to make it simpler for their members to start an emissions program. Let the association do the hard work in finding a reputable provider that suits your industry! 

Ask them to create some ideas to reduce emissions

Ask your employee or action team to come up with 5-10 ideas on how your business could reduce emissions. 

Ask them to categorise the actions into ones already done, are currently undertaking or could undertake in the future. 

This is an easy research exercise, and your employee or team is likely to already have thoughts in this area. 

Ask them where the business should focus

Ask your employee or action team to find a method to calculate the emissions footprint of your business, so you know where to focus the actions.

For many small businesses, basic online calculators are sufficient to get going. There are also apps and carbon accountants that can help. If you find a service that requires you to spend a lot of money to understand your emissions, make sure you shop around! 

Ask them to create a simple emission reduction plan 

Ask your employee or action team to put their findings into an emission reduction plan for the business. A good emission reduction plan includes:

1. Your emissions footprint for the previous financial year.
2. Actions to reduce emissions (complete, underway and future commitments).
3. A plan to adopt renewables for power needs (by location you operate). 
4. Helping to mitigate emissions you can’t avoid by supporting projects (such as tree planting). 

Ask them to communicate your plan

Ask your employee or action team to help communicate your emission reduction plan to customers and other employees. This might include posting the plan on your website, putting your plan on the wall in the lunchroom or sharing your plan with relevant customers. 

Ask them to set a review once a year

This could be in a team meeting or an annual responsibility for one of your employees.  

Hot tip: the ERC Protocol is endorsed by several industry associations and contains all the above to make it super easy! Ask your association to partner with us or simply join us directly in minutes.