3 Transport  

Think about the way you and your staff travel to the office and between meetings. Are you encouraging public transport use and low carbon travel? Have you implemented a Cycle to Work scheme to encourage your staff to uptake sustainable transport?  
 
The difference in CO2 emissions generated over a single journey by a petrol car compared to national rail, for example, is substantial. By encouraging a switch to public transport and low carbon transport, you can decarbonise your businesses travel emissions leading to a plethora of benefits, including cleaner air, less pollution, and healthier staff.  

4 Digital  

An excessive amount of energy is required to keep our digital world ticking over. The internet consumes around 416.2TWh of electricity per year and contributes to 3.7 per cent of global carbon emissions. Poorly designed websites with superfluous content generate higher levels of associated emissions each time someone visits the webpage.  
 
The recommended target is for no more that 1g of carbon to be produced each time someone visits your website. At present, energy consumption of digital technologies is increasing by 9 per cent each year, largely owing to the fact that more businesses have transitioned to online operations.  
 
In basic terms, the simpler your website is, the greener it is. Stripped back sites that only spotlight essential content with basic images and text will contribute far less to global emissions. This doesn’t mean your website must be plain and uninspired, it means you need to think critically about the content you upload and the design of your site. Some effective techniques to reduce your website’s carbon emissions include:  

• Switching to a green web host  
• Sustainable coding 
• Reducing the size of your images and videos while removing unnecessary ones  
• Using system rather than custom fonts 
• Streamlining your email content  

You can calculate your website’s carbon emissions using this tool.  

5 Waste 

Addressing waste issues within your business can help improve your reputation, comply with national regulations, prepare you for future policy changes targeting waste reduction, and save you money. For Earth Day 2023, consider which materials and resources your business may be using unnecessarily, and explore ways in which you could switch to more sustainable resources and reduce the amount of waste you generate.  
 
Reducing your waste has a five step approach:  

1) Prevention – stop waste at the source  
2) Reuse – reuse anything you can before disposing of it  
3) Recycle – consider which waste can be recycled and phase out single-use materials  
4) Recover – identify wastethat can be used to create other products to reduce reliance on virgin natural resources  
5) Dispose – process any additional waste to be disposed in the most sustainable and efficient way possible