The purpose of an environmental policy is to set the tone and direction for your organisations commitment to improved environmental performance. As such it should be a living document that is widely communicated internally and externally. Below we highlight some of the top tips to remember when writing your environmental policy. How to green your business builds on these principles and provides the necessary templates and guides to help you complete your environmental policy.
1. State who you are and what you do – it sounds obvious but you will be surprised how many companies do not mention who they are or what line of business they are in. The result is a very generic policy that procurement bodies can see directly through
2. Highlight what has been achieved thus for. You could include any environmental awards or certifications (i.e. ISO14001) here. It is always more compelling if you use facts and figures to illustrate your achievements – i.e. we reduced our carbon footprint from x tonnes to y tonnes of CO2e in the past year
3. If you are aware of environmental legislation that impacts your business, state that your company complies with these regulations. Be explicit – i.e. we comply with EU packaging and packaging waste directive
3. State your main commitment or environmental objective and in doing so recognise that your activities have an impact that can be reduced to achieve that commitment. For example: we recognise that as a widget factory our activities have an impact on the environment. As a business that strives for excellence our overall environmental objective is to reduce our waste and emissions per tonne of product.
4. State what actions or how you aim to achieve that objective. Here you can list the actions that may already be underway or highlight the actions you are going to undertake over the next year. Example actions include – reduce waste consumption by 10%; measure our carbon footprint; implement a recycling scheme; switch all our lights to energy efficient alternatives
5. State clearly how your policy will be communicated to staff an customers. For example, all staff are made aware of our environmental policy through their employee handbooks. In addition we display our policy on our company website and in our office reception
6. State when the policy will be reviewed and how. A food rule of thumb is that a policy should be reviewed annually and actions added and removed where relevant
7. Ensure the policy is signed by the managing director and dated. Senior commitment to a policy is critical if the objectives and actions are to be achieved
Note: your policy only need be one A4 page long. All supporting information can be appended to the policy
I hope these tips help you get started. Check out how to green your business if you want full templates and guides to facilitate this process.
No comments:
Post a Comment