As 2024 begins to ramp up, it's time to have conversations about your business's plans for the year. In order to stay ahead of the competition, many businesses are putting their efforts into developing a sustainability initiative.
By implementing sustainability solutions into your 2024 business plan, you give back to both the environment and your employees. If you're looking for some inspiration on where to start, we have a variety of tips to help you kick-start your brainstorming sessions.
The Importance of Sustainability
Sustainability can be viewed in a variety of ways, but the following two are the most notable: the influence your business has on its environment and how you maintain social impact among your employees to keep them motivated.
"Embracing sustainability offers opportunities for industry transformation, competitiveness, and new growth," writes Michael Hughes, Senior Manager of Sustainability Strategy & UN Programs Lead.
Sustainability initiatives can help you keep up with climate trends and take accountability for your business's impact on the environment and your employees. Additionally, customers may lean more into your products if you put sustainability at the forefront of your business goals.
Looking Ahead Into 2024
If you want to be successful, you have to be aware of what your consumers want. Now, it's not just about the product or service you provide but also whether your company's mission and purpose align with your customers' values.
"It isn't philanthropy. It isn't a project. It isn't a separate department. It's core to who you are. It's in your corporate DNA and it's part of your enterprise strategy," shares Sheri Hinish, IBM's global sustainability services lead.
As you begin developing next year's goals, etch sustainability into everything that you discuss. It's more prevalent than you might think, and it can directly influence your business's performance in the upcoming year.
Sustainability Resolutions to Try
Sustainability can involve what you put back into the environment, how you limit your waste, ways to encourage a positive work environment, and what efforts you put into expanding your business.
You can bring the following resolutions to your company's sustainability discussions.
1. Create a Sustainability Plan
If you don't have a sustainability plan in place, it should become your first order of business. Create an outline to follow when making decisions that influence your environment and workplace culture.
"Using a sustainability plan as a guideline is helpful when you're considering the best ways to make a positive impact. A plan doesn't need to be executed perfectly to see results, but using it as a baseline makes coming to conclusions for your business a bit easier," explains Cody Candee, Founder and CEO of Bounce.
This is a plan that can be edited throughout the year and can serve as a map with checkpoints on the way to success.
2. Discuss Budget Allocation
You have to put time, effort, and money into building out your sustainability practices. Before launching into your goals, you will need to decide on a budget for sustainability initiatives.
"While effort and the right mindset heavily impact how your business will measure the success of your sustainability practices, you need to put money into these resolutions if you want to see continued change," says Amanda Howland, Co-Founder of ElleVet Sciences.
Having a budget that is strictly allocated to sustainability practices ensures that the work is being done to implement them into your business practices.
3. Limit Wasteful Packaging
How you package your product and deliver it to your customers is a significant element of your environmental footprint. Packaging can be wasteful and harmful to the environment, and customers are often impressed with businesses that use less packaging, develop reusable packaging, or make their packaging recyclable.
"The amount of packaging that just gets discarded—and discarded improperly—has a greater effect on how your business is viewed than you might think. Switching to compostable packaging, staying away from harmful plastics, and even offering repeat consumers reusable packaging can be a game-changer," suggests George Fraguio, Vice President of Bridge Lending at Vaster Capital. "People hate not knowing what to do with their packaging once they've unwrapped their product, so explaining how to dispose of everything builds trust with our customers!"
Minimizing packaging, making it more eco-friendly, and spending the time to understand how your customers perceive it may have a positive impact on your business.
4. Encourage Composting and Recycling
Making your workplace more eco-friendly often helps your employees recognize your dedication to the cause. Putting effort into sustainability initiatives that only affect your customers is not enough—your employees need to see that you care as well!
"Hosting a workshop on proper composting and recycling will impress employees while educating them on sustainability. The process is much more intricate than one might realize, and many employees may realize they've been doing it wrong for years," says Datha Santomieri, Co-Founder and Vice-President of Steadily, a company that specializes in landlord insurance.
Placing compost bins and explaining what numbers mean on recyclables will guide employees in your workplace to make the right decision. Plus, this kind of learning exercise influences your employees to participate at home as well.
5. Promote a Sustainability Marketing Campaign
If some of your employees focus on a marketing campaign to promote sustainability, it can tie in with a few other resolutions. For example, the campaign can announce your new packaging protocol while being rolled out sustainably, re-emphasizing your commitment to the cause.
"Once your business changes how products are packaged, it's only the first step in a larger recycling process. Integrating recycling education into your subsequent marketing campaign can be a fun way to make recycling easy, understandable, and inviting," shares Dominique Zimmermann, CEO and Head Designer of Bombshell Sportswear.
Putting effort into a marketing campaign can create positive PR for your company, drawing new customers in and re-introducing your company's values to existing ones.
6. Hold Networking Events
Sustainability is often connected to the environment, but it goes beyond this well-known definition as well. To be a sustainable company, you need to put effort into keeping your employees connected and fulfilled.
"Hold monthly networking events and company bonding opportunities so that employees don't feel isolated or disconnected. These are spaces for employees to voice their concerns regarding sustainability and other initiatives, offer up suggestions on ways to improve, and connect with others to encourage future collaborations," says Brandon Adcock, Co-Founder and CEO of Nugenix.
Networking events are just one way that you can improve your company's sustainability, and it's because these kinds of spaces foster creation and new ideas. Your company will continue to move forward if your employees are leading the way.
7. Encourage Positive Workplace Culture
To truly work towards success, your employees need to like coming to work and feel connected to the company's mission. Innovation comes from positive energy and the desire to expand, but you can't have either if you're not encouraging a positive workplace culture.
"Putting effort into building relationships with every employee will help you to see a difference in the workplace. Ideas will be flowing and people will feel inspired to participate in new initiatives when they know their higher-ups have their back," explains Greg Hannley, Founder and CEO of Soba Texas.
Networking events, social events, encouraging physical activities, and holding meetings simply to throw out new ideas helps to bring your employees together. Just remember, you can't make any changes if you aren't being supported by your staff. Involving them in every process will lead to better results.
8. Host a Company Retreat
Putting together a company retreat has many benefits. You can host speakers, events, and social activities while you promote new initiatives, get feedback, and give your employees a break!
"Part of sustainability is being able to keep your employees involved and excited to be a part of the team. Including your entire staff on projects reminds them that they are just as important as everyone else when it comes to decision making—a company retreat is a place where these kinds of conversations and activities happen!" exclaims Saad Alam, CEO and Co-Founder of Hone Health.
Overall, a company retreat can help to re-energize your employees and keep them motivated.
9. Include Diverse Employee Benefits
Having employees that feel taken care of will help to propel your business forward toward success. Making sure that you can provide healthcare, dental, and vision to your employees will help them to stay motivated. Offering vacation time, mental health days, and subsidized public transportation should be a part of your sustainability resolutions.
"Being able to save money, energy, and gas by taking public transportation to work provides better environmentally-friendly options and proves that your business is taking sustainability seriously," says Maegan Griffin, Founder, CEO, and nurse practitioner at Skin Pharm.
Your business's offerings should aim to make your employees' lives easier. There needs to be more than just one reason why people want to work for your business. Money can't drive every decision that is made, and trying to improve the quality of your employees' lives should be a top priority.
10. Provide Education and Learning Opportunities
If you're serious about sustainability in the year 2024, make sure that you're setting up your employees to be knowledgeable about sustainable practices. Hosting learning opportunities throughout the year about climate change, eco-friendly packaging, composting, and other sustainable practices is one way to do this.
"Every month, have your sustainability team put on a workshop that teaches the employees something new about how to help the environment. Most of these practices are implemented right back into the business, so it's easy for the employees to see the impact they can have," shares Jonathan Zacharias, Founder of GR0.
Keep a running list of different kinds of workshops and education opportunities for your employees to have access to. Learning how to be a better environmentalist alongside coworkers does wonders for employee morale.
Sustainability Is in Your Future
You don't need to upend your entire company in order to become more sustainable in 2024. Changes can be small and still have a major impact. Keeping your employees happy, staying updated on new environmental trends, and providing education opportunities influence a work culture that will promote sustainability for years to come.
