Sustainability 101

1Sustainability 101: Z Energy’s approach to sustainability

In short – don’t take more than you need; especially from those generations coming after you.

Sustainability 101Sustainability scares people. It’s like the Cross Fit of the business world – everyone seems to be raving about it, I know it’s good for me, I’d probably love it if I tried it, I know it’ll be good for my wellbeing / staff engagement / team’s morale, but I’m a bit scared once I start whether I’ll get sucked in and not be able to find my way back, and I’d end up being a bore who talks about nothing but Cross Fit, with a big bill and a chip on my shoulder. (No offence to cross-fitters).

There are as many definitions of sustainability as there are world views. The most frequently quoted definition is from Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In short – don’t take more than you need; especially from those generations coming after you.

Sustainability is usually referred to in an environmental or ecological context – but it really spans all three of our worlds: our environment, our society, and our economy. (Sometimes referred to as planet - people – profit). Put another way; people happen on the planet. Jobs happen on the planet. You can’t have one without the others; and all depend entirely on the existence of the other.

Despite spiralling into a seemingly ever-expanding area of complexity, the good news is that environmental sustainability is really very simple. It is just this: the efficient and sustainable (or maintainable) use of carbon, water, waste, and electricity.

That’s pretty much it.

Sustainability 101: Z Energy’s approach to sustainability 2

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Measure (figure out where you’re at).

Set a goal (figure out where you’re going and how to get there against where you’re at)

Reduce your impact as much as possible (of carbon, waste, water and electricity)

Offset your carbon emissions (and any other impact that’s most relevant to your business; like waste if you’re in packaging, water if you’re an orchardist, for example)

Get buy-in across the company to ensure change is integrated and on-going.

Seek out champions and crow about successes.

Bring your team along with you and share your impact and successes across your supply chain and customers.

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As an SME in New Zealand, all you need to know is this:

The easiest starting point, I reckon, is to figure out what your purpose is, and align your sustainability journey to that. Why does your business exist, what’s its core purpose, and therefore what will make the most material (or biggest) impact? It’s going to feel hard to start on a water reduction campaign if you just don’t use that much water in your business and there aren’t a lot of options to relate it to what you do all day. If you’re a courier company, for instance, water isn’t your thing. Carbon emissions from transport is your thing. If you’re a lawnmowing franchisee and you want to market your “green’ credentials (or just show that you’re doing the right thing by the environment that you operate in) it’ll have a lot more relevance to your customers if you’re talking about how you reduced your carbon emissions from transport, and running your business, than it will that you eliminated plastic straws from your waste stream.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know. Go for it, and good luck!

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(Or keep reading below if you’d like a wee bit more on the above)…

Measure (figure out where you’re at).Running a business has an impact on the environment. How much of an impact, and on which part of the environment, depends on the type of business you run. Typically, though, your carbon footprint (or the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of your business’s activities) will comprise of emissions from the electricity you use, travel (driving and flying) and a bit from your rubbish, or waste. EnviroMark Solutions have a very handy (and best of all free!) calculator that can measure your total footprint, or impact. It’s a good place to start.

Set a goal (figure out where you’re going and how to get there against where you’re at).There are a bunch of tools out there to help you set sustainability goals and structures to implement a sustainability strategy against those goals. As above, the best place to start is to figure out first why you exist. Is it to sell coffee? Then maybe start with packaging, carbon and water use. Are you a printing company? Then definitely start with your procurement practices; especially around paper.

Then set some clear, attainable, targets around those. There’s a such a thing as science-based targets, which is worth looking at if you’re bigger and looking for a globally agreed framework. Or there’s just aligning yourself to those that have figured it out for you. The global Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for instance, are over 2000 of the world’s leading climate scientists. If they reckon a 30% carbon reduction target by 2030 will keep us under catastrophic global warming temperatures, then maybe that’s good enough for you.

In order to know where you’re going with your reduction target, you first need to know where you’re currently at. So, calculate your ‘baseline’ (as above, using a calculator if that’s helpful) and then set your goals to reduce against that. You might, for instance, currently have a “footprint” of 100 tonnes of carbon emissions (known as CO2-equivalent), and against last financial year, and plan to reduce that by 25% by next year. Or, you might currently use 100,000 litres of water a year; and set a goal to reduce that by 10% year-on-year for the next 5 years. Make sure you’re clear on your goals, and what it’s going to take. The best way to get after meaningful reductions is to get the person in the business who’s responsible for the change to be the change-maker, too. So, get the fleet manager to assess what the best options are to reduce travel. Get the Ops Manager to identify where water’s getting wasted. This is the best way to ensure enduring, permanent change.

As an aside, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard a delightfully surprised result coming from doing something for a “sustainability reason” and having a business efficiency co-benefit. There’s always something to be gained from getting closer to your business processes that you never saw coming.

Sustainability 101: Z Energy’s approach to sustainability

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Reduce your impact as much as possible (of carbon, waste, water and electricity)There’s great guidance around on how to get after your reduction goals – and most of them are, predictably, bleeding obvious. Fly less. Use less packaging. Turn off the taps. Monitor your air con usage and turn it off when you don’t need it. Buy local. Recycle your waste. Get a good waste pick-up and processing service that can come to the party and solve your problems for you. Use re-useable cups. Choose providers who can demonstrate their own commitment to sustainability. Don’t waste stuff. That’s pretty much it.

Offset your carbon emissions (and any other impact that’s relevant to your business; like waste if you’re in packaging, water if you’re an orchardist, for example).It’s critical that you look at offsetting only after you’ve measured your footprint and reduced it all you can – otherwise you could just keep flying your jet and driving your Hummer and using your single-use plastics and then just offset it all by paying away the problem. (No offence to Cross-Fitting Hummer drivers).

Understanding the ins and outs of offsetting is complicated and tricky. The easiest way to do it is to work with a reputable, local provider (such as EnviroMark or Carbon Forest Services, or Ekos) and let them know a) what your footprint is – after you’ve measured and reduced it as much as possible – and b) what’s important to you. We’ve bought a mix of exotics (mostly pines and blackwoods) and indigenous forestry (like manuka and kanuka) from Carbon Forest Services, because we get a spread across the country of projects that will mean we get maximum carbon sequestration (sucking up carbon) rates, plus the biodiversity benefits of investing in native forest.

Also be really clear as to whether you actually want to invest in forestry offsets to offset your emissions, and/or whether what you really want to do is simply plant trees. If you have a tiny carbon footprint and just want to stick some trees in the ground (and why wouldn’t you?) then talk to our friends at Trees that Count, who are helping Kiwis to fund, plant and count more native trees.

Get buy-in across the company to ensure change is integrated and on-going.It’s a myth that sustainability is a pet project run by some try-hard zealot in accounts who saw an inspirational doco and wants to turn you all into do-gooders. In my experience, it always comes from the CEO (or more recently, the CFO). CEOs like winning. It is also their job to ensure the business is around for a long time. That is what sustainability is.

It is undeniable that strong and disruptive leadership is essential in realising sustainability in business. But you are one of those leaders. Ask yourself: If your CEO doesn’t ‘get it’; where are you in that? Go tell them. Explain the business case. They’ll respond positively because they have made it their job to lead the business powerfully into the future. So make it your job to make that business case inarguable.

Sustainability 101: Z Energy’s approach to sustainability

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If there’s one thing you can do, it is this: Just start.

Seek out champions and crow about successes.The absolute undoubtable best part of my job is talking to the guys who run our business at the coalface and figuring out what sustainability means to them. They get to realise the benefits, and tell the story, day-in-day out. There are so many inspiring and motivating stories that come from the day-to-day successes that these guys see, that means other people will ‘get it’ and make changes in their own lives / department / team to the same end.

One of the co-benefits I’ve seen as a result of implementing a recycling process across our network, for instance, has been that the champions on the sites who’ve made absolutely stunning reductions in waste going to landfill have also found their leadership ‘mojo’ in the process, and it’s turned out to be a staff empowerment and leadership development win, as well as an environmental one.

Bring your team along with you and share your impact and successes across your supply chain and customers.Look for inspiration and share stories of those who are nailing it. The really fun (and almost unique) thing about sustainability in business is the more we win, the more we all win. There’s no precious IP in saving the planet, there’s no owning a piece of the pie; there’s just collective impact where we all get to do a bit more good and save the planet a little bit more.

So, share your stories with your suppliers, customers, even your competitors, and let’s see how we can go faster and do more together.

Also, research shows that a whopping 86% of young people looking for a professional job these days are actively demanding that the firms they’re considering working for can demonstrate their commitment to sustainability. Attracting and retaining good staff can come down to doing the right thing by people and the planet. And we all know there’s money in getting and keeping good staff.

I’m going to let you in a little secret – the trick to telling good stories well, is to have good stories to tell. So go forth, get some stuff done in your business, measure, reduce, and offset your impact, empower your staff, get and keep top talent, feel good about yourself, and lead your business sustainably into the future: environmentally, socially, and economically.

Sustainability 101: Z Energy’s approach to sustainability