There are many opportunities and advantages in helping your organisation to be more sustainable and we really want to help. BioRegional have created freely available One Planet Action Plan toolkit for organisations to help them cease the opportunity and create an action plan using the One Planet approach; we hope that this will be helpful but suggest that you use whatever approach works best for you. We have collected together some of the common questions that get asked below:
How much does ‘going green’ cost?
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.
How should I measure my impacts?
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:
- SMEasure. A building analysis tool that requires no kit.
- Environment Tools. The Environment Tools Directory is one of the largest up-to-date, independent databases of environmental software tools on the web.
- Ska Rating: the environmental assessment tool for sustainable fit outs. The Ska Rating is an environmental labelling method designed to rate and compare the environmental performance of fit-out projects initially for office buildings in the UK.
Where can I find case studies?
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.
