Becoming a One Planet Sutton will bring green growth and green jobs. Through developing environmental products and services, greening our existing supply chains and operations, and supporting a diverse and local economy. This will in turn support greener communities and lifestyles across the borough.
One Planet Sutton can showcase your green business, or provide you the ideas and tools to maximise this opportunity. Greening your business will save money, enahnce your reputation, increase your resilience, and make employees proud.
Whether you are an small or large business, or public sector organisation, there is a wealth of resources out there to help you become more sustainable and this section provides some ideas and links.
To start, BioRegional have created a freely available One Planet Action Plan toolkit for organisations. Download the kit and start mapping your impacts and efficiency opportunities today. It will develop a simple yet practical Action Plan that will break sustainability into manageable steps. For local, practical measures, check out the community ideas and links here. We have also collected together some of the common questions that get asked below:
Greening your organisation does not necessarily have to cost anything. In fact, it can often identify financial savings as going green involves being clever with resources and efficient in the way you do things. How much it will cost depends on what you do and where you are starting from. Some actions require absolutely no investment but deliver savings others may require a large investment with slow payback. We advise organisations to engage staff at all levels to help identify actions as well as working with sustainability experts. Then by collecting together actions and organising them by environmental savings and feasibility/cost (using a matrix like the one below), it is possible to address the quick wins first. If you are a large organisation, a more comprehensive way to explore options is using marginal abatement cost curve. These help derive the cost and carbon saving for different opportunities.
There are different tools out there to help you with monitoring and make it easy. We recommend you check out the following free resources which can help you keep track of your impacts:
There are many different ways in which your organisation can explore being more green….
Case studies are a great way to understand what other organisations are doing, as well as sharing ideas and getting inspired. There are lots of case studies out there: to get you started, you can take a look at Carbon Trust case studies, as well as case studies on 10:10′s website.
If you are interested in using the One Planet Framework for your business, please visit: www.bioregional.com/our-services
The One Planet Living framework is a comprehensive approach to improve the environmental, social and economic sustainability of businesses. Using the One Planet Living framework your organisation could:
The 10:10 campaign. This is a big UK campaign for individuals, schools, businesses and other organisations. It’s a simple and successful idea where people make a pledge to cut their carbon emissions 10% by 2010. It gives you all the guidance and help to make it happen. Visit: http://www.1010global.org/uk London Green Procurement Code. The Mayor London’s Green Procurement Code is a support service for London based organisations committed to reducing their environmental impact through responsible purchasing. Visit: www.greenprocurementcode.co.uk/
Carbon Trust. The Carbon Trust is an independent not for profit company set up by the UK Government with support from business to take the lead on low carbon technology. Visit: www.carbontrust.co.uk
