The key to developing a successful environmental strategy is people. Depending on the size of your business, the responsibility for implementing greener practices should not sit with just one person. A successful action plan can only be implemented when your entire team is involved:

• Business Owner or General Manager must endorse policies and procedures, and provide support from the highest level.
• Managers of each department have accountability for sustainable practices in each section of the business, to ensure there is support for new sustainability initiatives.
• All staff need to be involved to provide ideas and follow through on identified actions that make a practical difference each day. Often the front line and operational staff will provide valuable input into where the opportunities to improve exist.

A team focus will allow you to share the workload and build support for the effort. To help create a strong, cohesive and effective team that gets the job done, make sure you obtain management support and seek volunteers to participate. People who are passionate about looking after the environment will be great advocates for what you are trying to achieve and will help get others involved.

If possible, ensure that team members represent an appropriate cross-section of your business. Include people who are responsible for functions such as purchasing, accounting, information technology and the operational management and maintenance of your business’ buildings and assets – these people will all have the ability to influence the delivery of your plans.

When establishing your green team, ensure they develop a structure that enables the team to focus on delivering outcomes, including:

• preparing a schedule for meeting times – how often will it meet, how long will meetings go for?
• operating to an agenda with minutes and action items being recorded
• clarifying the roles and expectations of individual team members, and ensuring that there is one person who takes responsibility for the administration and accountability of the overall team
• setting goals and objectives so that the team can measure and report on their performance
• establishing a formal mechanism to ensure the recommendations and outcomes of the work of the team are communicated and initiated within the business.

Next step: Developing an environmental management policy