Here we are, celebrating another day on our planet, Earth. Did you know that the first Earth Day was celebrated on the 22nd of April, 1970 to honour our planet and the concept of peace? We might have taken them for granted until recently, however, we welcome this Earth Day with a deeper appreciation for both. How does a small business celebrate this Earth Day meaningfully? Here is a list of steps to take for your small business.
Step 1: Tip the needle
For every decision you make in the business, simply try to tip the needle towards the environment. Keeping the environment in your conscious decision making helps you in bringing your business closer to your vision of a green enterprise and save some money. As small business owners, our personal life is pretty much entangled with our endeavour, hence, tipping the needle implies to choices in the personal life too. You will find a variety of beautiful articles posted today to help you do that!
Step 2: Understand where you are
It is important to understand where your business stands in the spectrum of green to unconcerned to greenwashing on the environmentalist scale. The inner rebel in me often critiques my own business practices and travel methods. However, I try to balance my “slightly concerning” air travel emissions by completely avoiding four wheelers on my daily commute. A good way to gain a quick knowledge in this sphere is to try out many free toolkits out there (Our sustainability platform is up and coming in this space, and it is free forever).
Step 3: It’s time to plan
This is the more expensive bit and hence, you really need to plan. But hey, it is better to plan early than say, waiting for the government beginning to force you to change your behaviour when the planet is over 2 degrees hotter by the middle of the century! You can get in touch with a consultant or use a product like our Net Zero storyboard to get your plan up and running.
Step 4: Core workout
Once you have readied your operations, it is time for a workout on the core of your business. Future-proofing and greening your business model is a much harder task that requires the creme de la creme of the consulting world and significant energy from you. We are building our platform to get you there but it is still a very long journey ahead of us. (Do feel free to get in touch with us to learn more about how we are planning to help businesses change their inner core!)
Step 5: Take it easy!
The urgency of the climate crisis might be so overwhelming that it might paralyse you. Please do not let it happen, you are very much needed in this fight. If you think you simply can’t improve your business processes at the moment, go on and offset your emissions until you can! I have heard of many Extinction Rebellion activists burning out from the tremendous anxiety that spurred them on to take up activism in the first place.
