There are countless things businesses and individuals can do to reduce their impact on the environment, many of which require only small changes to achieve great outcomes. This is often referred to as reducing your business’ environmental ‘footprint’, or where activities generate greenhouse gas emissions (such as energy and fuel consumption or waste production), it is referred to as reducing your ‘carbon footprint’ or ‘emissions’.

Start by following three core principles:

1. consume less
2. consume what you do use wisely and conservatively; and
3. consider the broader environmental impacts of your consumption and make better choices.

Focus on:

• avoiding and reducing energy consumption
• reducing water consumption
• reducing fuel consumption and investing in cleaner fuel technology
• eliminating unnecessary purchases
• generating less waste and reducing the amount of waste going to landfill
• minimising pollution of waterways and landscapes through reducing chemical use
• minimising impact on the natural environment.

Using less doesn’t have to be about making drastic changes or sacrifices. Conservation and efficiency measures can start with simple things like remembering to switch off lights when they are not needed, or adjusting the temperature on air conditioners by a few degrees.

Reducing consumption does not have to cost a lot of money. There are many things that can be done for little or no cost, and the savings from these actions can help fund some of the strategies that might require a more substantial investment.

Below are just a few actions you could take which will result in avoiding or reducing your consumption:

• inviting local sustainability experts to deliver training to your staff to help them understand how they can make a difference
• encouraging behavioural changes in staff (and among your guests) to use power and water more conservatively through education programs which raise awareness and provide prompts to remind people to be conservative
• analysing work processes to see if they could be more efficient (e.g. converting to electronic storage of information instead of hard copy based files to reduce paper consumption)
• asking your waste management supplier to conduct a waste audit to help you reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and provide recycling solutions and training for your staff on how to recycle effectively in the workplace
• encouraging your suppliers to support your initiatives by becoming part of the solution (e.g. reducing packaging on their deliveries)
• purchasing equipment to help achieve your outcomes – such as timers to install on your electrical items or introducing more efficient lighting solutions
• servicing and maintaining your equipment regularly to maximise operating efficiency.

To identify opportunities to reduce your footprint you need to conduct an environmental audit (PDF, 181KB).

Next step: Implementing your plan