Environmental footprint = An indication of an entity’s effect on the environment, both directly and the strain it places on resources.

Read on to find out why sustainable practices are worthwhile, ideas of achievable things you can do in your business, programs you can be involved with to get community recognition and why paying for a “carbon footprint” of your business is more complicated than it looks.

Reasons to implement sustainable practices

• 
  Reduce costs
  Using less and critically reviewing your purchases can reduce your outgoing expenses.

• 
  Customer recognition
  The community places an increasingly high value on “green” companies; businesses that are seen to be doing the right thing environmentally. Many consumers are consciously choosing to deal with companies that are environmentally recognised.

• 
  Corporate and social responsibility
  Businesses, as individuals, have a responsibility to ensure that the community isn’t made a worse place to live because of their actions.

Steps to reduce your environmental impact

Anything that you do to reduce electricity and water consumption as well as the other products consume, in addition to saving waste, will contribute towards making a difference environmentally. Here are some simple ideas that you could implement in your business:

• 
  Cut down on electricity
  

  	Turn off lights in rooms that are not constantly in use
  	Review your lights and replace with efficient lights where necessary
  	If you need to keep security lights on, use sensors
  	Use solar electricity

  
  
• Use less water
  

  	Converts toilets to dual flush
  	Put flow reducers on your taps
  	Review your vehicle washing procedures and see if water can be reduced (use trigger nozzles, recycle water, change car wash chemicals)
  	Install a rainwater tank


Reduce consumables


	Use glasses instead of disposable cups
	Use email where possible instead of printing and faxing or posting
	Review the products you buy (consider things such as do they use too much packaging, are they necessary at all, is there a better option)
	Buy recycled paper and/or toilet paper
	Throw out less
	Recycle printer cartridges
	Recycle electrical waste (such as computers, televisions, printers)
	Separate your waste as much as possible (such as cardboard, metals, plastics)
	Identify any wastes that could be reused in other areas (consider things such as if you are throwing out boxes that could be reused to package your own orders).

There are lots of other things that you can do, so reflect on your current practices or raise the issue in a staff meeting to think of ways to operate in a more sustainable way.

Programs to promote your environmental efforts to the community

Given that your customers and potential customers care about your environmental practices, it is worthwhile thinking about how you can communicate your efforts to your community. Some ideas are:

• Become Green Stamp Accredited

MTA offers environmental accreditation to businesses that meet the required criteria. This allows successful businesses to promote their business using the Green Stamp. See www.greenstamp.mtansw.com.au for more information, including criteria.

• Earth Hour

Sign up to this international program each year and turn off your lights. Earth Hour gives participants promotional material and logos that can be used on your company website and invoices and posters. See www.earthhour.org.au for more information.

• Clean Up Australia Day

Get a team together from work and enter this national program. Make sure you wear team outfits with your company logo on them. See www.cleanup.org.au for more information.

The complicated part about measuring your environmental or carbon footprint

There are lots of consultants offering footprint analysis, but before having your environmental footprint measured like this, it is worthwhile considering what is being analysed and if you think this is appropriate. Currently there is no clear guideline for measuring an environmental footprint, as it isn’t clear what each person or business is responsible for (in terms of emissions) when purchasing, producing or using something.

For example:
I ate a roast beef sandwich.
To get that beef from a field into my sandwich, it required a farmer to provide food, land and water to a cow. That cow needed to be slaughtered and transported. The beef needed to be packaged and refrigerated and transported, then placed in a shop or butcher that required electricity and the rest. I then came and purchased the roast beef and made a sandwich. In the journey from the field to the sandwich, various processes caused emissions to occur.

If measuring my carbon footprint on the day that I ate the roast beef sandwich, it would need to be determined how much of the emissions that went into the beef becoming edible are:

	My responsibility
	The farmer’s responsibility
	The slaughter houses’ responsibility
	The butcher/supermarket’s responsibility?