Does Your Start-up Have To Care About The Environment?

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31 May 2017. Is it necessary for your start-up to worry about its impact on the environment and its carbon footprint? In this age of austerity and political uncertainty, do you have to care about this at all or can environmental concerns be consigned to the last decade?

The truth is that environmental concerns are here to stay and this is something that your enterprise, big or small, will need to embrace. Here are some reasons why that is.

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The law may make you

The political situation is in a state of flux in many leading Western economies but many environmental laws are still in place. Even if there is a political will to remove them, it may take years to do so. This means that, in order to stay on the right side of the law, you will need to keep the environmental impact of your business in mind.

You can find out more about environmentally friendly technology and techniques from government agencies and departments. You can also gain qualifications such as the master lean manufacturing if you want some information in more detail.

The fines for breaking environmental legislation and causing pollution to the environment can be high and so it does not make good financial business sense to break the law!

Your customers want you to

If you want your business to be successful you must know your customer and you must appreciate their fears and concerns. The safety of the environment is a number one priority for many of your customers and so it must be yours as well. They will be looking closely at your environmental credentials.

It is not enough to worry about the environment, you must be seen to be worried about it. Make it obvious that this is a priority for you by flagging it up in your business literature, logo, marketing, etc. Your customers will appreciate the effort that you are making.

Your employees will appreciate it

Customers are not the only ones with environmental concerns! Many employees select the firm that they want to work for based on the environmental credentials. If you want to recruit and retain the best employees, you will need to show them that the environment is a top priority.

Environmental awareness often goes hand in hand with health and safety issues and so this directly affects your employees. They will want to work in a safe environment and these impact office design, location, and policies.

It will save you money

The principles underpinning protecting the environment are: reduce, re-use and recycle. All of these can save you a lot of money. If you reduce the volume of raw materials that you use this will reduce your expenditure and cut down on waste. If you re-use what you can it will reduce the raw materials you have to buy in the first place! Recycling can save you a lot of money and uses up less space.

Ultimately, a wasteful business is not profitable and harms the environment.

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