Greening Your Business

There is more and more need to go green in your life, with increasing expectation on the need to reuse, reduce and recycle. But it is important to remember that these principles are not just relevant at home, businesses must also go green.

Puma, the sportswear giant was the first company to announce its environmental impact back in 2011 and since then there is a growing feeling within the business world that it is important to prove your sustainability.

The International Organization for Standardization introduced the ISO 14001 certification in 1996 based on outcomes from the Earth Summit in Rio. The standardization promotes effective and efficient regulations with the aim of reducing the environmental impact of your business. There are certain ways to encourage greater environmental sustainability in your business, a few of these are outlined below.

Planning
The first step towards making sure your business runs in an environmentally friendly manner is to identify which processes in your business are going to impact upon the environment – this could be something as everyday as keeping office lights on overnight, to a much wider problem such as sourcing and using raw materials that may not be particularly sustainable. Part of the planning process involves coming up with suitable measures to put into place so that any improvement can be measured.

Implementation
This stage is perhaps the longest, in the first instance training must be administered to all employees to ensure that they know exactly how to implement the relevant changes. Making environmental changes to your business involves participation from all levels of the company, changes must be measured so the appropriate employee must first know how to record and measure the changes.

Review
Once these changes have been put into place it is important to remember that they must be reviewed frequently. This will help measure the changes that have been made and make any relevant notes, it will also ensure that you keep on top of the constantly changing legal requirements.

Putting an environmental management system into place will help you make your business more environmentally friendly and instantly more accountable and impressive to consumers.

For more information about ISO 14001 certification please visit: http://www.qmsuk.com/iso-14001.php

Alice is a freelance copywriter working on behalf of QMS International PLC, a global organization specializing in ISO certification based in Norwich, Norfolk.