Practical actions and principles your business can follow to help the planet

With COP26 taking place in Glasgow until November 12, here are some ways that you can evaluate your business to become more environmentally sustainable.

Green Street is a guide to helping smaller retailers & hospitality businesses work together to slash their carbon footprint and become more sustainable as quickly as possible.

Green Street know what it's like to be a small business - you have no time and you need to be an expert in everything. But, there are only so many balls you can juggle. We all know we need to be more sustainable, but where do we start, and what should we do?

So, Green Street have kept it as simple as possible. The Planet-friendly Guide has around 30 practical actions you can take, grouped under six easy-to-remember principles. Start doing these, and you'll make a difference to your business, your customers, your community and our planet.

How it helps you

Green Street have also chosen some actions based on the real-life experiences of retailers and people who have already tried to make their businesses greener.

If you do want to find out more about a particular action we have suggested some websites which you can look at as well as some examples of good things which other companies are doing.

Green Street have kept it simple and jargon free - our aim is that you don't need to use Google at all to understand what you need to do. Just in case, we have included a friendly jargon buster to help you work out some of the many technical terms that sometimes make this area difficult to understand.

Importantly, more and more people are looking to make personal changes so they can live more sustainably, and they are looking for companies to help them with this. The COVID pandemic has helped, not hindered, this desire - for instance, a poll at the end of 2020 found that 65% of people plan to be more mindful of the impact of their purchases, and yet half of UK consumers do not trust the product-related claims of companies at face value.

So Green Street believe that becoming greener will help you not only cut costs, but also increase sales as more people look for shops and businesses to help them live sustainable lives. We hope this Planet-friendly guide helps you take your next steps in doing just that for your customers.

The six planet friendly principles

The six planet friendly principles will help you navigate through our planet-friendly guide. Each principle has its own information and a set of actions you can take to help you make your business greener. Each action has guidance on what to do, how it will help your business thrive and where to go for extra help if you need it.

Just click on a principle to get started.

1. Save energy and switch to renewables
2. Minimise packaging
3. Recycle and reuse
4. Offer greener choices
5. Work together
6. Share what you learn

Useful links

• Find a shop
  
• Best Small Shops competition
  
• Jobs board
  

If you have any other queries please contact us.