Becoming a more environmentally friendly business can help you to substantially reduce your operating costs and your impact on the environment. This means you’ll keep more of your profits in the bank and you’ll improve your reputation with both customers and employees.

Your approach to going green should start with improving the environmental performance of your business. This involves going back to basics and focusing on the areas of energy, water, waste, fuel and the things you buy.

Once you have done this, consider what else you can do to contribute to regional, national or global efforts to conserve the environment. This could include setting up a carbon offsetting program (PDF, 203KB) or supporting conservation projects in your region.

Steps to Greening Your Business

Greening your business will involve changing everyday processes, activities and functions. You'll also need to adopt a change in mindsets, views and behaviours among your staff.

The key steps to going green include:

• establishing a ‘Green Team’
• developing an Environmental Management Policy
• measuring your consumption
• identifying where you can Avoid, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
• implementing your plan
• monitoring your performance
• marketing your green activities