How to launch a sustainable business

Businesses have a big role to play in helping to tackle the climate crisis. In the UK, the commercial sector was responsible for 18% of CO2 emissions in 2018 and in the US, industry accounted for more than a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses need to play their part to make emissions reductions in order for us to collectively meet the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement. 

You might think that as a small business that is just starting out, your actions will have very little impact. However, according to the World bank, small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) make up about 90% of businesses and account for 50% of employment worldwide. If every new business that was launched did everything they could to help the planet as they started out, think of the difference it would make. 

Being sustainable also just makes good business sense. There is now a huge market for environmentally-friendly products or platforms. 93% of global citizens have a positive image of companies that support environmental and social causes, with 80% saying they would be willing to buy a product from an unknown brand with stronger environmental commitments.  This means that if you make the effort to launch your business in a way that is beneficial to the environment, and get your messaging right about it, then you will have access to a whole network of environmentally conscious customers right from the start. 

Starting out sustainably is also easier in the long run. If you are just beginning your business journey, you are in a unique position. You can make your organisation sustainable right from the start! Not only will this make a bigger impact on the planet, but it will also make your lives a lot easier. It’s a lot more simple to start out right, then to have to change everything later. 

Sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start, especially when you are a small team with limited resources. So, our team has put together a guide with our top tips on launching a sustainable business:

1. Make your product sustainable 

Regardless of what your business product is, think about how the product itself can help the environment. Start off by designing your product with sustainability in mind. If you make clothes, make them out of sustainable materials (organic cotton or hemp, recycled plastic bottles etc.); if you make food, use organic and local ingredients; if you are an event planning company, make your unique selling point that you only plan sustainable events. If you start off with sustainability designed into your product, you are starting off well. To go even further, you could make your product carbon neutral right from the start, or plant trees for every product you sell.

2. 100% renewable energy 

This might be a pretty obvious tip, but that’s because it’s important! Make sure wherever possible, when you are using energy, it comes from renewable sources. Whether you are working from home or acquiring office or factory space, power it with renewable energy. This is easier to do when moving into a new space, then it is later when your operations are up and running. Some great options for renewable energy providers include ecotricity and ovo energy. 

3. Green web hosting 

Whatever business you are launching, it’s fairly safe to assume that you will have a website. This means that one easy step you can take is to host this website on a server that operates using 100% renewable energy. An example is Krystal hosting. These guys use green energy for their power, all their operations, and for their data centre. This means that your website will be powered entirely by the sun, wind and sea. 

Once your business is established, and your website is in constant use, it is a long process of migration to a new web hosting provider. It’s best to pick a good one right from the start! 

If you are yet to create a website, you can use create.net to design and build a website that is powered by renewable energy.

4. Be picky about your suppliers 

This is the big one. And the tricky one. Supply chains hold the biggest opportunities for breakthroughs in sustainability. The typical consumer company’s supply chain creates a far greater environmental cost than its own operations and can account for up to 80% of the greenhouse gas emissions and 90% of the impact on air, water, biodiversity and geological resources. 

Again just starting out puts your company in a unique position to get this right the first time round. Most established supply chains are not set up to meet sustainable and ethical principles, but yours can be. It’s easier to pick sustainable suppliers from the start, than to switch suppliers later on, or to work with difficult suppliers to change their polluting ways.

The key is to think of every stage in your supply chain: where the raw materials are coming from; what factory the products are made in; and how your waste is disposed of at the end. It helps to know what you are looking for. A good tip is to write an ethical sourcing guide and write down all the things that are important to you. For example that all supplies need to be organic, or recyclable; all workers need to be paid a living wage; or where possible all operations need to be powered with renewable energy. You can consult this when searching for suppliers, and check whether they meet your criteria. 

This process can take a long time, but it’s worthwhile implementing from the start, and don’t worry if you don’t get it perfect. A couple of good ideas to get you started on your search include: Reboxed to buy refurbished tech equipment; Globechain to find second-hand items of all kinds; and Firstmile to sustainably dispose of your waste. 

5. Sustainable Search Engines 

One easy way to increase your business’s climate impact immediately is to install a sustainable search engine on all of your company devices. This means that with every google search you will be planting trees and funding charities that are doing great things. Ecosia is the most famous charitable search engine, and they donate about 80% of the profits that they make from advertising to planting trees. So far they have planted over 120 million trees! Another great option is SearchScene, which donates 95% of their profits to charities, with a focus on supporting those that help fight climate change, and those that alleviate the suffering caused by it.

6. Greening your finances

One of the first steps to setting up your business is to set up your bank account. This is another opportunity to incorporate sustainability by using ethical, environmentally friendly banks that invest in good things. 

There is an increasing awareness that banks are ‘carbon majors’ alongside the fossil fuel producers themselves. Banks globally have provided $2.7 trillion in financing for fossil fuels since the 2015 Paris Agreement, and banking for fossil fuels rose $736 billion in 2019 alone. Banks fund environmental degradation by funding fossil fuels,  deforestation,  and extractive mining industries, with most major banks being implicated. Instead of helping to finance environmental degradation, set up your accounts with banks that will invest your money in projects that do good. 

An example is Triodos bank, which focuses its activities across three overarching themes: environmental, cultural, and social. These cover a broad range of sectors – from renewable energy, organic farming, and social housing through to arts and culture, charities, and education. One of their key values is transparency and they publish details of every organisation they finance on their website, so you can see for yourself how your money is delivering positive change. 

7. Pensions with intentions

Employers have to provide a workplace pension scheme for eligible staff as soon as your first member of staff starts working for you. This is another area where you can, yes we say it again, do it right from the start by making sure your pensions align with your values and support the things that your organisation works for and believes in. 

There is £3 trillion in the UK pensions pot alone. This is money that could be used to do something good like investing in renewable energy, green infrastructure, or companies with extremely high environmental standards; or it could be invested in fossil fuels, tobacco or the worst-polluting companies. 

When setting up your employees pensions schemes, make sure that you know where the money is going, and that it is going somewhere good. Make My Money Matter has some great resources to help you with this, including examples of pensions funds that are doing good things for the planet, such as the Church of England Pension Fund, the Environment Agency Pensions Fund, and NEST. 

Don’t undermine all the good work your business has been doing by investing in something damaging to the environment without even realising it!

Make sustainability part of your business mission statement 

When you are launching a new business, it’s important to think about why you are doing it, and what values and ethics you stand for. One of the most important things you can do is to found your business on sustainable values, and for every big decision you make, or wherever your journey goes, take the impacts on the environment into account. Learn more about our carbon offset programs for business and for more great tips check out our guide on how to reduce your business carbon emissions.