Top 10 Ways to Make Your Brand More Sustainable

Sustainability is much more than a recent buzzword – it is not only our collective effort to make the planet greener for future generations but also a differentiating factor for conscious consumers when choosing brands.

Customers are increasingly drawn to brands that create products or services with higher quality and offer a lower impact on the environment. Even if a business doesn’t strive to become sustainable because of its own concerns about its environmental footprint, brands have realised it’s worth doing so for consumers who are increasingly environmentally conscious.

To help your brand become more sustainable, we’ve put together some easy yet impactful ways to reduce your business’s environmental footprint.

1. Go paperless

Most businesses already rely heavily on electronics – why not use them to their full potential? Stop cutting down trees for paper and digitalize wherever you can.

2. Source locally

Especially if you rely on a lot of different suppliers, it’s important to ensure they’re upholding your sustainability standards. One of the best ways to do so, while also reducing your carbon footprint, is to source the materials you need locally.

3. Switch to renewable power

The availability of renewable energy will vary by region, but it’s a good idea to switch to renewable suppliers (or invest in solutions such as solar panels) for your offices or stores, to reduce the carbon footprint of your business and support the local economy.

4. Explore green marketing options

Marketing activities can have a very negative impact on the environment – switch to green marketing to reduce it. Instead of leaflets, use digital means and improve your targeting.

5. Create sustainable merchandise

Are you using promotional pens, lanyards or other merchandise to promote your brand? Why not switch to more sustainable options instead? Branded reusable shopping bags, travel coffee cups or reusable cutlery can also help your customers lead a more sustainable lifestyle, making them more likely to be used regularly.

6. Conduct a waste audit

Keep track of all the waste your business is creating for a month. This may seem like too much hassle, but it will help you identify where you’re creating unnecessary waste. Later, you can easily address these areas and save both money and the environment.

7. Reduce the carbon footprint of your website

We rarely think about what impact our website has on the environment – when every high-resolution image or piece of video on your website adds to it. Minimalism is the way to go, both aesthetically and impact-wise.

8. Install water-saving solutions

One of the simplest ways to build a more sustainable brand is to install water-saving taps (or inexpensive tap extensions) and toilets in your facilities. This also helps reduce your bills, making it a double win!

9. Recycle electronics

As we mentioned before, your business likely already relies on electronics. Aside from using them efficiently and maintaining them, it’s also very important to dispose of them responsibly. If the electronics are still in a fairly good condition, donate them to schools, libraries or charities. If they’re not, make sure you’re recycling them!

10. Avoid greenwashing

Lastly, as sustainability is becoming an important differentiating factor for prospective consumers, businesses are not always entirely authentic about their green practices, in the hope of gaining a sustainable brand image without actually doing the work. However, greenwashing is likely to be revealed at some point or another, so save yourself the reputational damage and avoid being deceitful about your environmental performance at all costs.

Making your business more sustainable is as easy as taking these simple steps. Depending on which industry you operate in, some of these may be more important to your final footprint than others – so it’s a good idea to tackle these first. We hope these tips will help you on your journey towards a more sustainable way of doing business.

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