There are 2 ways to start a climate agenda in your organisation.
(They’re not really trademarked 😉).
Hire a consultancy to measure your current emissions, audit your supply chain, point out the bad news about your premises, and give you their recommendations. Act on all of their recommendations. Hire them back in a few years to verify you’ve done it all correctly according to the guidelines. Get completion badges to display on your website. Declare your achievements in a multi-page document outlining all of your climate goals and how you’ve hit them. Bonus points for more pages, really pad that thing out.
Publish a page on your website called “Our Impact”. List out anything climate-positive you’ve already started under a “What we’ve done so far” heading. List initiatives you’d like to start under “Our 5 year plan”. If you’re brave, list out the areas you know need serious work, under “Where we need to improve”.
Consultancies are not the wrong way to go by any means – when the time comes for you to have data-backed research behind your numbers, hire one to measure your impact accurately.
To get started though, it might be overkill – you can likely identify a few areas you could get started on already.
You can set targets and work towards them with zero permission from anyone.
You can switch banks and super funds anytime you like.
You can have conversations with suppliers this week and consider if they fit your future plans.
You can start a new product line as an experiment to see if it’s possible to deliver what you already do, with lower negative impact, without hurting your existing business.
It requires being a little vulnerable – if you can stomach that, you’re off and running.
For self-employed creatives, normal business traps are easy to fall into and overcomplicate things - but they’re totally avoidable when flying solo.
Learn how to keep things simple, enjoyable, and climate-smart in around 2 minutes a day by joining The Climate Soloist.