Where do we start? For soloists.

Depending on the size of your org (lots of people, or just you) there are various ways to kickstart a climate journey. Looking at soloists today, companies tomorrow.

I always say “just start”, but enough people have asked “ok, but WHERE?” for me to take a step back and analyse what the actual step-one‘s have been in the past.

Soloists

Your at-work impact and your personal impact might just about be the same, particularly if you work from home.

Despite shooting down a bunch of jargon in yesterday’s email, I’m gonna start with some more: Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.

Quick explainer: Scope 1 are emissions you create directly; Scope 2 are indirectly created by power companies who you purchase power from; and Scope 3 are the emissions that other orgs in your supply chain create through their own practices.

Cleaning up your Scope 3 is an enormous undertaking even as a soloist, so park that for now.

Scope 1 mostly (not entirely) applies to corporations who legally have to report their emissions every year, so you can park that too… other stuff falls under Scope 1 for us occasionally, but still pause this for now.

Scope 2 is where your big bang-for-buck, low-hanging fruit opportunity lives – and it’s as simple as switching your power supplier.

Power companies in Aus generate power either by burning fossil fuels, by generating renewable energy, or a combo of the two.

If you’re with a big known power company like AGL, Origin, Energy Australia – they’re fossil fuel burners, so almost anyone else is better.

The Green Electricity Guide shows you state by state, which companies in Aus generate exclusively renewable power. Pick one, hit “make the switch” in the top corner for instructions, and you’ve arguably made the most impactful climate move possible for the time investment.

If you’re on a roll, also consider switching your bank accounts and superannuation accounts – find a list of good and bad super funds here, and banks here.

Banks and super come down to investment money. Good ones typically invest in renewables and other positive projects, and bad ones typically invest in fossil fuels and harmful projects. The money they use is your money.

The big known names in banking (Comm Bank, ANZ, NAB etc) are all bad, so switch away if you can.

Want to start your sustainability page today? Copy and paste this onto a new page titled “Our Impact” and of course edit as needed:

We’re in the process of reducing our environmental impact by switching away from our power supplier (insert name here), bank (insert name here) and superannuation fund (insert name here) to providers who invest in positive and renewable projects. We’ll update this page as changes take effect.

Feel free to send me a screenshot of your new page if you move forward with this, I’d love to see it and give you a shout out!