Bellrock is highly committed to helping to combat climate change and work with other companies to introduce greener ways of operating. Businesses have a big responsibility to lead the way when it comes to protecting the environment and at Bellrock, we are proud to have achieve carbon neutral status in 2020.
We have just launched our new sustainability policy and strategy and we are putting work into making positive environmental changes. By sharing some of the insights that we have gained while doing research for our own strategy, we hope to inspire like-minded companies to get started on their green journey:
Set green goals
Like all business objectives, you need a set goal to work towards to ensure that you stay on track and to be able to monitor your progress. The government has released a number of targets for the future, so it will help your business to align to the ones that are relevant, as well as reviewing your specific business processes and practices for improvements. Bellrock’s vision for sustainability focuses on four themes; energy efficiency and carbon reduction, waste reduction and recycling and water preservation.
Do your research
Becoming green doesn’t happen overnight. In order to achieve a 20-year goal, you’ll need to set out measurable goals and achievable milestones over the next years or you’ll get easily overwhelmed. The initial focus needs to be all about gathering data, finding benchmarks, setting up performance indicators and starting to measure progress. Whatever your business, you’ll need to look into what solutions are applicable to your workspace.
Look at ways to reduce energy consumption
Reducing your business’ carbon footprint should be a major priority and how you do this will depend on how your business operates. Figure out what your direct carbon emissions are and make changes according. Installing smart technology could help to reduce energy consumption in the office while transitioning to an electrified vehicle fleet might be interesting for companies with maintenance services.
Invest in sustainability projects
As a business, calculate your carbon footprint and then invest in sustainability projects around the world to offset your carbon emissions. Being carbon neutral means that a company has balanced out the carbon emissions they cause by investing in carbon-saving projects such as protecting conservation areas around the world.
View Bellrock’s sustainability projects here.
Landfill diversion
Reducing waste and increasing your rate of reuse and recycling is vital to becoming a sustainable business. To achieve this, you could divert up to 100% of waste from landfill by diverting materials to recycling plants or to be used for other uses. Waste products that cannot be reused or recycled can be turned into a useable form of energy by incineration, gasification, and energy-from-waste (EfW). Other solutions include the adoption of food waste recycling and the elimination of single-use plastics across your operations. Before you get started on making changes, businesses need to ensure they have a full audit trail of where waste material ends up.
Water reduction and preservation
Businesses today are challenged to implement better water management practices to reduce water waste as well as save money. Water conservation strategies such as the use of efficient fixtures can reduce water usage in most commercial or institutional buildings by over 30%. However, you might also want to investigate water-saving technologies, rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling systems to help conserve valuable water resources.
Get employees involved in green initiatives
As well as leading by example at management level, it is important to include employees in green initiatives. You should look at introducing initiatives like a cycle to work scheme, where employees can get discounts on bikes if they are travelling to work by bike instead of by transport that is not environmentally friendly.
Inspire clients and partners to work in partnership with them on joint carbon and waste reduction initiatives, offering incentives to influence their practices and behaviours, measuring, and monitoring their sustainability performance.
If you would like any guidance on introducing new green initiatives, we would be happy to review your building portfolio to conduct a green audit and recommend actions to become a greener company.
Get in touch so we can get started on saving the planet together!
