The environment and climate change is on the agenda more than ever with 2023 recently recorded as the hottest year on record. King Charles III – a long time voice for the environment – spoke at the recent COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai saying:
“Records are now being broken so often that we are perhaps becoming immune to what they are really telling us. We need to pause to process what this actually means: we are taking the natural world outside balanced norms and limits, and into dangerous, uncharted territory.”
Nowadays, most businesses are committed to being as environmentally-friendly as possible but what things can a company do on a daily basis to be greener and can your website be part of this plan?
One way in which most of us have seen a difference in our business lives came not because of our environmental views, but as a result of the pandemic. Overnight, we had to get used to meetings online and, in many cases, some of these have continued. Not long ago, we might not think twice of driving across the country for an ‘important’ meeting but now we could have the same meeting online – saving miles of fuel, as well as time.
Now that people have, in the main, returned to their offices, it’s not uncommon for those based in big offices to potentially spend part of the week still working from home. Not only are staff then saving fuel but business owners are potentially reducing the number of offices they are actually keeping open – saving on heating and lighting. In addition, there is less paper being used within offices and, as part of this, the amount of printing is reduced too – all of which has an environmental impact.
If your team are expected to come into work or need to be on the road in some shape or form – then is your fleet of vehicles as eco-friendly as it can be? Are you providing charging points for electric vehicles on site?
When we get deliveries on our doorstep, if we sign for them this tends to take place on a tablet type device and, certainly since the pandemic, many businesses have made signing documents online easier for customers. Businesses, in turn, have acknowledged that, in the majority of cases, a signature online is enough.
We’ve seen businesses develop website portals where documents can be easily signed. Customers aren’t having to drive to your office to sign paperwork and paper isn’t being printed unnecessarily. Also, signing documents online could mean that they aren’t then being posted to a customer and then sent back – saving on fuel, printing and paper.
According to 8billiontrees.com, when measuring the difference between an email carbon footprint vs a paper letter by mail, a standard letter size envelope can generate about 20-25 grams of emissions. But, a standard text email generates only about 4 grams of carbon emissions.
However, even sending emails can ultimately also be detrimental to the environment. 8billiontrees.com says that the average office worker sends 10,000 emails a year – which is the equivalent of flying 10 miles in an airplane. They explain: “The exact amount of the CO2 produced by sending an email includes many variables; the energy it takes to move the email across the Internet, process it, view it, store it, reread it and delete it. This is executed by computers, servers and routers worldwide that operate with varying levels of energy efficiency. An email footprint also includes the manufacturing of the equipment used to make the email system possible.”
However, compared with the energy and emissions generated by paper mail, email is certainly much better for the planet. Sending an email uses about 1.7% of the energy it takes to deliver a paper letter, which is a huge reduction.
In addition to offering the chance to sign papers online – your business might offer customers the opportunity to book their own meetings via your website portal, at a time to suit them. They might still be meeting up physically or they might have those meetings virtually as well.
An efficient customer portal could include somewhere to ask FAQs, sign documents, place orders and download information sheets. This, of course, saves leaflets being sent in the post. These PDF documents can also be updated more regularly – rather than waiting until the print run of that information sheet has run out… In addition, they can be generated in real time and personalised for that client or potential client.
While many customers will no doubt prefer the online approach, in terms of saving time and effort, it’s also important that businesses don’t ignore those clients who would still rather have some human contact – whether that’s a chat on the phone with a ‘real’ person or an in-person meeting.
Recently, we have seen networking in-person back on the agenda, as well as the reemergence of conferences and exhibitions. However, it’s not uncommon for some networking groups to switch between online meetings and in-person meetings, while there’s often an opportunity attend seminars with attendees from all over the world, online.
If you do need to post items out – perhaps you have e-commerce arm to your business – then it’s good practice to look at the processes involved in that to make the exercise more efficient. You probably wouldn’t make a trip to the post office or call a courier every time you receive an order. Typically, you’ll wait until you’ve got a certain number of orders ready to go or you’ll go at the same time each day. Some websites will say ‘order by 1pm (or a particular time) for next day delivery’, to make sure that orders are in for that day’s processing.
To read more about processes within your business, take a look at our recent two-part series:
https://www.lakesolutions.co.uk/news/2023/11/29/15/01/getting-the-job-done-part-one-why-processes-matter-for-your-website/
Some businesses actually state on their websites that they only dispatch orders on certain days, which makes it easier to plan and reduces the amount of journeys being made. Again, look at the carbon footprint of the courier business you might use – are they using electric vehicles? On top of this, it’s obviously also good to use eco-friendly packaging where possible.
Today we are not just looking at the eco-footprint of the deliveries leaving your building – e-commerce businesses typically have to cope with returns as well, which also have an environmental impact, as packages make the same journey back again. One way to avoid some returns is to use your website to its best advantage – by sharing as many details and information about your product as possible. You could also make sure that it’s straightforward for customer to ask you a question about a product (via FAQs initially or then a chat function or a telephone call). If customers are confident in what they are buying in the first place, they are less likely to return it.
For any business, it’s important to check out the environmental credentials of your suppliers as well, including the organisation which is hosting your website.
Using cloud tools can be so much more environmentally friendly than having a server rack in your company’s building, which might only be half full, but is still whizzing away. For instance, a study found that using the Microsoft Azure cloud platform can be up to 93 per cent more energy efficient and up to 98 per cent more carbon efficient than on-premises solutions. These efficiency gains are due to IT efficiencies, hyperscale efficiencies and Microsoft’s purchase of renewable energy.
As Microsoft explains in the report ‘The carbon benefits of cloud computing’: “Cloud computing makes it possible to collect, analyse, and store huge quantities of data, reduce the total cost of ownership of IT, and increase business agility. Today, data centres supporting the cloud consume a significant, and growing, amount of energy. Societally, moving from many on-premises servers to fewer large data centres presents the opportunity to reduce overall IT consumption of energy and related carbon emissions.”
For more information about how your website can be at the centre of your efforts to be more environmentally friendly, call us at Lake Solutions on: 020 3397 3222.