Part II: Influencing Sustainability in Businesses

Continuing on from the what was mentioned from my colleague Oran, we will swivel our attention to technologies and initiatives that are promoting and influencing sustainability within businesses. If you find yourself following on from Part I of this two part piece, I must say welcome back and thank you for continuing to pursue your shared passion of sustainability with us! However if you missed Oran's blog, I recommend you take a step-back and follow this link that will bring you to a page full of sustainable goodness:

mcveigho.wixsite.com/isandsustainability/post/smart-home-technology-influencing-sustainability

Write now that we've rid ourselves of the ill-informed lets get started. Previously mentioned in Part I, a report from the notorious Forbes news site states that 88% of customers will remain loyal to a company that is supportive of environmental and social issues, (Butler, 2018). This number of 88% is quite substantial don't you think. If I owned a business, this would definitely be something that I would keep in mind.

There are plenty of different schemes that businesses can do their part to help be more sustainable. I've done us all favour by narrowing these down to 4 that I believe are actually worth mentioning. (Be warned, some of these you may be ponder how this could possibly be relevant to making a business sustainable)

BlockChain

Are you sick of businesses getting away with pretending that they're sustainable? So am I. BlockChain has the power to change that! Now don't worry, I know you're just immediately thinking about BitCoin. All I'm going to say is stop thinking about that, that's no use to us here. (In fact BitCoin is quite the opposite of sustainable but I'll talk about that another time.) Focusing on BlockChain technologies, seen to be the future, allow for transparent supply chains between businesses. What this means is that businesses will have to be careful who they have in their supply chain. If BlockChain is to really take of as a huge worldwide technology used in all businesses, businesses would want to use green supply vendors. If they don't people will be able to see who businesses trade with and thus make decisions on whether or not their supply chain has a corporate social responsibility behind it. It's time for

businesses to rethink their suppliers, when BlockChain comes, they might regret if they don't.

(Mazars.ie. 2020).

Business Working Responsibility Mark

Ireland has the Business Working Responsibility Mark. This mark is an achievement given to businesses that is awarded to only businesses that are going about incorporating CSR effectively throughout their company. Research shown on their website shows that 60% of investors are willing to divest from companies that have poor sustainability record. Achieving the Business Working Responsibility mark is a huge achievement that gives a positive image for any business. It comes with a lot of other benefits. It is awarded on a number of different factors such as diversity, innovation but most importantly, environmental sustainability. Companies that are rewarded with The Mark, are the ones that are sustainable. They are the ones that 88% of customers will remain loyal to and that investors won't divest from. (Business in the Community Ireland. 2020).

Office Lighting

Is there anything worse than that harsh office lighting? What is with it being so bright and white. Well did you know that office lights are probably inefficient. As Oran mentioned in part I, smart lighting is the future. Found to be 85% more efficient than the traditional incandescent light. I think it's time for every business to get rid of those horrid harsh office lights. Replace it with some smart lights, change the atmosphere with the flick of a switch from an app that changes the colours of the lights, (ElectricIreland.ie, 2014).

Getting Employees Involved

An obvious method to make your enterprise more sustainable is to engage your employees in the vision of making your business green. This can be a fun and inclusive way for the employees to step back from work and take a break from all thing stressful. Pulling insights from employees will give the business different points of view and give an overall view of how the business can assist the community and make it a nicer place to live. Who doesn't want a nicer play to live aye? I'm sure worker productivity would increase with a happier community! (Inc.com, 2020)

That's that. There's four niche way to make businesses more environmentally sustainable. If you enjoyed this why not check out some of our other blogs written by some of the other Green Guys. Next week I hope to write about a more in-depth analysis of how BlockChain can effect the environment!

References:

[1] Inc.com. 2020.8 Simple Ways To Green Your Business. [online] Available at: <https://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/8-ways-green-your-company.html> [Accessed 25 March 2020].

[2] Business in the Community Ireland. 2020.Business Working Responsibly Mark - Business In The Community Ireland. [online] Available at: <http://bitc.pointblank.ie/csr-certification/> [Accessed 25 March 2020].

[3] Mazars.ie. 2020.Technology And Sustainability: Five Innovations Defining The Future - Mazars - Ireland. [online] Available at: <https://www.mazars.ie/Home/News-and-Insights/Latest-News/Technology-Sustainability-5-innovations> [Accessed 25 March 2020].

[4] ElectricIreland.ie. 2014.The Story Of The Light Bulb - Energy Efficient Light Bulbs. [online] Available at: <https://www.electricireland.ie/news/article/the-story-of-the-light-bulb> [Accessed 25 March 2020].