Here are 12 potential green business new year resolutions of varying ambition for your business - pick one and drive it through to get 2012 off to a sustainable start:
- Set some really ambitious stretch targets to hit by 2017 and 2022;
- Engage employees in a carbon/waste/water reduction programme - ask for ideas and use them;
- Instigate a carbon reduction competition between staff teams/sites;
- Be kind to cyclists: improve racks, start paying cycle mileage, subsidise cycle purchases, improve site access;
- Install/improve teleconferencing facilities;
- Radically increase the number of employees working from home;
- Work with a supplier to develop a more sustainable supply of raw materials/goods;
- Bump up the weight given to sustainability in supplier selection (and tell your suppliers);
- Initiate the development of a new, greener product, service and/or product service system;
- Delete an unsustainable product line;
- Install (more) on-site renewable energy systems;
- Invest in more efficient/alternatively fuelled vehicles, subsidise low emission vehicle purchases by staff.
Whether or not you decide to do any of the above, you MUST do the following in 2012 - no excuses!
- Learn some new green business skills.


Good ideas, I like the competition one. Some people are just very lazy when it comes to being environmentally friendly as they are lazy people or just very stuck in their ways! However, if they could win something it sparks off all sorts of desires needing to be fulfilled.
One major issues for companies, I have found, is simply remembering to turn all electronic equipment off standby. Your average office has a vast array of things on and they are often, in the rush to get home, forgotten about. Posting signs at the Exit would be a timely reminder!
Thanks Alex, but if culture change was as easy as putting up "switch it off stickers" I would be out of a job! Check out our white paper on the subject: http://www.terrainfirma.co.uk/pdfs/Fostering%20Green%20Behaviour.pdf
I especially like the suggestion to be kind to cyclists. Anything and everything to make life easier for those of us on two wheels
!