Mango’s Tips on How to Start Your Sustainable Business Journey 

Nowadays, being a sustainable business is a benchmark for success. 

No matter your industry, environmental friendliness taps into all aspects. For example, many customers prefer products made with sustainable materials, employees will favour companies with ethical stances, and clients are more likely to choose suppliers that support eco-friendly initiatives.  

Not only this – but being a sustainable business comes with many benefits that go beyond ticking a box. It reduces costs, saves money, creates greater employee satisfaction, and most importantly – saves the planet! 

How to Start Being a Sustainable Business Today 

With so many good reasons to act sustainably, you may be wondering: ‘Where do I even start?!’  

Here’s a few tips from our team on how we started our journey as a sustainable business, and how we maintain it to this day: 

Start With Your Office 

It may feel like a big move initially, but making your office space greener is the best, most critical place to start! 

When you think about what it means to be an eco-friendly business, your first thoughts go to being: 

• More energy efficient 
• Reducing waste generation 
• Recycling what you use 
• Reducing pollution 

Here’s how we suggest you get started… 

Establishing new policies and practices will help you make positive changes more quickly. This doesn’t have to be a daunting task – a couple of easy first steps can include introducing recycling bins and educating your employees on what can/can’t be recycled through informative posters and emails. There’s lots of fantastic resources available online from leading organisations such as WWF, Our Planet and STEM – but you could go a step further and invite local environmental specialists and consultants to do training sessions with your team. 

Make efforts to go paperless where you can. You can start by reducing the amount of paper your office uses by implementing a ‘only print if necessary’ rule, allocating a certain amount of printing credits per person and only placing orders for recycled paper.  

You can also invest in energy efficient office equipment and remind your staff to power down and turn all the lights off at the end of the day. 

The less waste you produce, the more you alleviate pressure on landfills and greenhouse gas emissions. Giving reusables to your employees is a great way to achieve this. Whether it be reuseable water bottles or coffee cups – these items make a huge difference to the environment. Plus, you can get them branded which help with advertising your business, fostering a positive work culture, boosting employee morale, and creating a strong sense of belonging within your company! It may be an investment, but it really is a win-win. 

Engage Employees in Sustainable Initiatives 

Being a sustainable business is a collaborative process. Everyone has a role to play in being more environmentally conscious, and so having support from employees across all levels will help you make a greater impact. 

As such, employees need to be engaged so they not only understand the importance of being sustainable – but they also believe in the cause and feel passionate about making changes to help the planet. 

Aside from notifying staff on what they can do – it’s worth involving them in the bigger picture, too. Whether it be taking part in a suggestions box, a small focus group, or a company-wide update meeting every quarter – your employees will feel more invested in your sustainability mission if they play a role in the process, no matter how big or small. 

You can also create incentives around sustainability, such as offering rewards for employees who cycle to work. You can even turn sustainability into challenges, such as zero-waste days or bring-your-own-lunch days. 

Give Back to Charity 

You might already be donating to charity, but there’s ways you can place sustainability at the forefront of your charitable efforts. 

For example, when you donate items to the community such as clothing and food, you prevent them from going to landfill. At certain times of the year when waste and poverty is at its highest, supporting local foodbanks will mean you’re helping both social and environmental causes.  

Monetary donations or team volunteering opportunities can also be part of your sustainability mission. Your company might work with non-profit organisations that support environmental conservation. It could even be part of your business model. For example, many companies opt for planting trees to aid reforestation.  

At Mango, we have planted 250 trees via Treeapp, one for every employee that works at the company. 

(Find out more ideas on how businesses can support charities over on our blog!) 

Obtain a Credible Sustainability Certification 

Certifications are an excellent way to benchmark and score your sustainability practices. 

Meeting all the requirements to earn a credential lets you know your business is doing things right. It also helps you identify any blind spots you can improve upon, and shows customers and clients that you are committed to being environmental and ethical in your practices. 

Not only this, but because many certifications include a provision for continual improvement, it means you’ll always be kept right in how you approach sustainable practices and informed of new ways you can make waves with saving the planet. 

We recommend ISO 14001, an internationally agreed and recognised standard for Environmental Management Systems which supports organisations in identifying, managing, monitoring and controlling environmental processes and requires them to assess environmental issues relevant to their operations e.g. waste management, resource use and efficiency. 

This type of certification is suitable for organisations of all types and sizes and includes many benefits, such as:  

• Demonstrating green credentials 
• Reducing costs, overheads and wastage 
• Focusing on proactive management 
• Impressing existing clients 
• Better employee engagement 
• Improving your reputation 
• Ensuring legislative awareness and compliance 
• Winning more business 

At Mango, we have been working towards both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and will be accredited by the end of 2023 – we are so excited! 

Becoming a Sustainable Business is a Journey 

Becoming a sustainable business can be slow, steady journey – but it’s certainly a worthwhile one if it means preserving our planet for the years to come. 

If you have any other questions or advice on how to get started – please feel free to get in touch with the team today or leave a comment below!