Step 4: engage your stakeholders
All companies influence the lives of the people and groups with whom they interact. You can use that influence to bring carbon reduction practices to employees, customers and your supply chain.
How can I influence others?
There are a number of programmes you might introduce to extend your influence beyond your company's activities.
*Start an employee carbon reduction programme. This couls be through providing information on domestic carbon reduction strategies or a competition to see who has the most creative ideas for reductions at home. The good habits employees developed at home could be brought back into the workplace to further reduce your carbon footprint. The CBI has a dedicated page to help you understand how to engage your employees.
*Start a customer carbon reduction programme. This could include preferred pricing for low carbon products in the store, or the introduction of paperless billing, and the inclusion of carbon reduction tips on the bills themselves. The point here is that customers and clients come to understand your organisation as a valued partner in community reduction efforts.
*Encourage your supply chain to reduce their carbon emissions. This could be through preferred purchasing policies from suppliers, where the embodied energy and carbon of products you buy is one of the criteria in choosing a suppler. Remember that you are also part of the supply chain for another organisation, so be prepared to satisfy this same criteria in your own goods and services!
*Join any of the business-for-business support groups. Programmes
such as the Prince's Mayday Network bring together business
to share experiences in carbon reduction and provide support.
Regional and even local versions exist and provide you an
opportunity to share resources and ideas with other businesses
closest to your home base.
Have something to say about climate change and business? Get in touch
