Guide 4 min read
1. Considering your environmental and social impact
All businesses must understand their legal responsibilities to the environment, staff, and customers, and ensure they comply. For many small businesses, it takes dedicated effort to meet these obligations, especially when legislation is regularly added and updated.
It may be possible that taking additional steps towards sustainability, Net Zero and ethical trading can also bring new opportunities and benefits for your business. For example:
● retaining staff by treating them fairly and supporting their development therefore creating loyalty and motivation
● building a reputation for responsible trading and enhancing trust which attracts new customers, staff and investors
● reducing costs by cutting waste
● moving into new markets by developing innovative and ethically responsible products and services
● accessing grants to support your ethical activities.
2. How socially responsible is your business?
To promote your business as socially responsible, you need to document your progress in implementing socially responsible activities and identify areas where you can make improvements.
Social responsibility audit
First you need to assess how far your business goes beyond fulfilling its minimum legal obligations. This means carrying out a social responsibility audit in which you consider your business's impact on:
● the market - for example, how you promote yourself, how and where you obtain supplies, and how you sell your products or services
● your workforce - the wages you pay, your employees' conditions, and your equal opportunities policies
● the environment - for example, your emission, waste and consumption strategies
● the community - for example, whether you are a 'good neighbour' and what you put back into the community
● human rights - such as taking into account not just your own direct relationships but also your suppliers' business relationships.
Sustainable development policies
You can minimise your impact on the environment - and even help repair damage already done - by implementing sustainable development policies.
Before you implement an environmental policy, you should:
● assess your current environmental impact, here and overseas
● appoint someone to champion and oversee sustainable development
● make small, simple and manageable changes.
You should also have a look at operations across your business.
● Design processes. Could you replace toxic substances with less harmful ones? Are your products designed to be multifunctional or reusable?
● Energy consumption. Could you replace equipment with newer, more energy-efficient or less polluting models?
● Resources. Are you using renewable or recyclable materials? Do you recycle your own waste?
3. Staff welfare in your supply chain
Remember to look beyond your own direct relationships, such as those with your own employees, and to consider those further back in the supply chain.
If you have suppliers, look into their labour practices to find out:
● is employment freely chosen and are workers free to organise themselves?
● is child labour used?
● are working conditions safe and working hours reasonable?
● are fair wages paid?
● is there any discrimination?
While you can request written evidence, onsite visits - if practical - are the most reliable way of checking these conditions.
If you use or supply products such as wine, coffee, sugar, tea, bananas, flowers or chocolate, the Fairtrade Mark is confirmation that the products meet certain social, economic and environmental standards.
4. Giving back to communities where your goods and services are produced
You can support communities both locally and overseas by:
● linking up with charities working in the area
● sponsoring specific workplace projects, such as factory training or skills development
● sponsoring wider community initiatives, such as community spaces or literacy projects
● offering employment to disadvantaged groups
Business in the Community has developed the CommunityMark standard to recognise the work that small and medium-sized enterprises do in the community, both here and abroad.
5. Networking, support and recognition for sustainable and ethical operations
Support
Business Energy Scotland is managed by the Energy Saving Trust and provides free impartial support, and access to funding, to help small and medium-sized businesses save energy, carbon and money to grow a greener business. Loans and grants are available for energy and carbon-saving and renewable initiatives such as upgrading or installing heating, insulation, glazing, LED lighting, or wind turbines.
The Energy Saving Trust offers businesses a Measure Plan Act service which helps businesses evaluate their carbon emissions, plan how to reduce them and then support implementation. They also help with employee engagement and specific initiatives such as training for smarter eco-driving, training sustainability champions, and providing e-learning opportunities.
Zero Waste Scotland provides support for food waste reduction in businesses, and guidance on how to measure and monitor your business waste, understand the concept of the circular economy, and how to apply this in the workplace and procurement.
The Federation of Small Businesses has a sustainability hub with a wealth of content such as quick wins to achieve more sustainable operations, understanding smart meters, reducing energy and water consumption, and developing formal policies.
Networking
The Energy Saving Trust runs the Green Network for Businesses which links over 300 Scottish businesses that are growing their sustainable practices, including initiatives relating to waste, energy efficiency and staff engagement. It is free to join the network and you can demonstrate your commitment to sustainability by displaying a membership mark, and sharing your own case study.
Awards and certifications
Cycling UK offers the Cycle Friendly Employer (CEF) award with gold, silver and bronze levels. This recognises the steps employers take to provide information and incentives for employees, as well as other elements such as facilities and management of customer traffic.
The Vibes Scottish Environment Business Awards recognise organisations that have demonstrated business benefits from good practices, and publish winners’ case studies.
Over 3,000 businesses in the UK across many sectors have achieved B Corp Certification which measures a company’s social and environmental impact across staff benefits, giving to charity, supply chain management, and use of materials.
Avoid ‘greenwashing’
Sharing misleading statements about your green credentials is sometimes known as ‘greenwashing’.
Remember, if you are promoting your business as socially and environmentally responsible, take great care that you can substantiate any claims about environmental standards or benefits. If you cannot do this, not only could it destroy trust in your business, but you could face regulatory action.
For example, the Advertising Standards Authority reprimands businesses that mislead customers when making environmental claims, through actions such as omitting significant information, exaggerating or adding ambiguity, or using misleading imagery.