How to positively impact the planet as a remote team

March is B Corp Month! For anyone wondering what a B Corp is, B Corp is to business what Fairtrade certification is to chocolate. Certified B Corporations do business in a particular way. Rather than operating purely to generate profit, they prioritise working for environmental and social good.

Together, as a community of like-minded businesses, B Corps are driving the movement towards a new kind of economy that is better for communities, the environment and for workers.

It’s a rapidly growing movement: in 2007 the first 19 B Corps were certified, and there are now over 3,500 Certified B Corporations across more than 70 countries. Some of the bigger brands you may recognise include Etsy, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s and Kickstarter.

One of the most important aspects of B Corporation certification is a commitment to reducing the business’s impact on the planet and working to positively impact the world around them. In an unprecedented year, many organisations have been working remotely. While many of the changes to remote working have had a positive impact on the environment with fewer business trips, a reduction in transportation and commuting, even working remotely has an impact that needs to be addressed.  

So if you’re a remote business, how can you have a positive impact on the planet? The first place to start is to look at the policies you would have in an office environment which then need to be translated to a remote environment. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

• Idea #1: Create a remote recycling programme & incentivise green practices.

One of the main assumptions we make about working remotely is assuming that it will be inherently greener and generate less waste. 

Whilst this may be the case, in a domestic environment individuals might not have the same levels of recycling programmes that you might in an office environment where it’s covered for employees. The responsibility to be green falls to the individual team members to dispose of their waste in an environmentally-friendly way. 

Talk to your team about recycling at home, encourage them to find out what options are available to them and set up a recycling programme to incentivise everyone to think a bit more carefully about how they manage their waste at home. You can set up challenges with fellow B Corp Do Nation and encourage your team to get involved. 

If you used to have fancy coffees in the office environment, consider purchasing reusable mugs for your team to encourage them to continue green behaviours when they get their takeaway coffee from a local cafe. Check out fellow B Corp Keep Cup for the opportunity to pick up some great mugs on brand. Give your team a lovely gift and encourage them to be green at the same time!

• Idea #2: Look at your suppliers, where are you buying your kit from?

We all have supplies we need to buy for our home office set up and to do our jobs well. Who are you buying yours from? 

One thing we’ve seen many B Corps doing over the course of the pandemic is sharing lists of green suppliers with their teams to help them make more sustainable choices when they’re picking up books, office supplies and kit they need to get on with their jobs. 

Consider creating your own, come up with a list of commonly purchased items and supplies and create a list of preferred green suppliers and share it with your team. There are dozens of organisations that are committed to greener practices right across the spectrum. 

Whether you use bookshop.org to purchase books from local, independent bookstores, to certified B corporation office supply companies, challenge your team to get their supplies from organisations committed to green practices.

• Idea #3: Take a look at your web hosting.

Did you know that the internet contributes about 2% of global emissions? Some predict this could rise to 23% by 2030. 

According to the Website Carbon Calculator, the average web page tested produces 1.76 grams of CO2 per page view. For a website with 10,000 monthly page views, that's 211 kg CO2 per year. 

Data centres which host websites take a lot of power to run. Some are much more polluting than others, depending on their level of energy efficiency and whether they have any meaningful commitment to using green energy sources. 

As we strive to create a sustainable web, we should aim to use the greenest options available to host our web projects. Check how sustainable your current website is by visiting the Website Carbon Calculator, and consider switching to a greener web host to reduce the impact of your digital presence. For more advice on reducing the impact of your website on the environment, check out this helpful guide from fellow B Corporation, Wholegrain Digital.

• Idea #4: Think twice about the length of your virtual meetings.

Meetings are an important part of business life, and when you’re working remotely, communication is critical. But the reliance on video calls does have an impact on the environment, and changing our digital habits can help make small carbon savings. One study from 2012 estimated that a five-hour meeting held over a video conferencing call between participants in different countries would produce between 4kg (8.8lbs) CO2e and 215kg (474lbs) CO2e.

But it is important to remember where it replaces travel to reach meetings, it can be far better for the environment. The same study found the video conferencing produced just 7% of the emissions of meeting in person. 

Doing a one-hour video call produces about 1kg of CO2e (or ‘carbon dioxide equivalent’). According to Bulb, that’s about the same carbon impact as eating a cheese sandwich. 

So the next time you’re thinking about hosting another Zoom meeting, try to keep it as brief as is productive. This can help save the planet but also your teams from the inevitable Zoom fatigue that can creep in.

(Source: The Guardian)

• Idea #5: Help your team get onto renewable energy plans.

Switching power to renewable sources is the best way to reduce the carbon impact of our digital habits. While you may be in control of the energy plan for an in-person office when people are working from home the blend of personal and work usage leaves the responsibility with individual employees. 

Encourage your team to switch their energy plans to renewable, for those who think the switch would be more expensive than a traditional plan, help them to understand the cost of switching by pulling together a list of green energy providers wherever your employees are based. 

If you’re based in the UK you can use Unfrack.me to help your team to find green energy supplies that don’t support fracking or check out the Money Saving Expert’s Cheap Energy Club which offers a whole host of green providers including the first B Corporation energy provider, Bulb. 

• Idea #6: Adopt climate perks: encourage slow travel.

It may be hard to believe in the COVID-19 pandemic, but eventually, we will be allowed to travel again. And as soon as we are able to travel, there’s no doubt that there will be a flurry of holidays booked as employees around the world look to get away from it all for some well-earned rest and relaxation.

It’s no secret that the aviation industry contributes a huge amount to global emissions, with around 2.4% of global CO2 emissions come from aviation. The industry is responsible for around 5% of global warming. 

A return flight from London to San Francisco emits around 5.5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per person – more than twice the emissions produced by a family car in a year, and about half of the average carbon footprint of someone living in Britain. Even a return flight from London to Berlin emits around 0.6 tonnes CO2e – three times the emissions saved from a year of recycling.

But how can we support our teams to consider the environmental impact of their travel? One clever solution comes from the organisation Possible, which have come up with a programme called Climate Perks. Climate Perks is a new initiative encouraging employers to offer paid ‘journey days’ to staff who travel on holiday or work trips by train, coach or boat instead of flying. Possible’s data analysis shows just how much of a change would be made on someone’s carbon footprint if they just reduced 2 Mediterranean flights per year. 

As a Climate Perks employer, you’ll receive a policy template for you to easily adapt and adopt as your own to suit your employees and the context they’re working in, and employers who put the scheme in place get accreditation to show off your genuine commitment to the cause. 

If you’re in the UK, we’d also recommend you check out the new slow travel company Byway who build sustainable travel into their affordable trips, and fellow B Corporation and all-around amazing company TYF for sustainable adventures on the Welsh coast.

• Idea #7: Offset whatever is left. 

Offsetting should always be the last resort as it’s much more efficient to reduce your impact than simply to offset that impact through any of the initiatives out there. That said, it’s an important part of the process.

Any business of any size will have some sort of carbon footprint even if you do everything you can to limit that footprint. To get close to carbon neutrality, you can make use of one of the amazing initiatives out there designed to help you offset your carbon emissions.

There are dozens of organisations that can help you to calculate your carbon footprint and work to offset it, but first, you could check out fellow B Corporation and Escape 100 organisation from 2019 & 2021: Climate Care and fellow B Corporation: Treedom.

They both take holistic approaches to carbon offsetting, offering you the opportunity to assess your impact and get involved in bespoke solutions with dedicated help from their teams. 

If you’re looking for a more hands-off approach, check out the newcomer to the market Ecologi where you can pay a monthly subscription to offset your business’s carbon footprint and see the number of trees being planted every month. 

----------------

We hope that gives you some food for thought as you navigate the world of remote teams and being an environmentally conscious organisation. 

At Escape this is a new journey for us and these are some of the tools and ideas we’ve come up with to help us be a better organisation, but we’d love to hear your thoughts and tips too. If you have any suggested resources or recommendations that you think should be in this list, drop us a note at support@escapethecity.org and we’d love to add in your ideas too.

For more resources and thoughts on remote working and the environment, check out this blog from Remote tech company Buffer, and this piece from the Guardian about the impact of the internet on global emissions.