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Taking Responsibility For Our Own Sustainable Actions

10th April 2021 , in Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics, Society, Sustainability

Be responsible, be sustainable

At its heart, sustainability is about making decisions that will meet your needs without compromising those of future generations. Those decisions can be personal, or business related. Often, the first subject that instantly comes to mind when we think of sustainability is climate change and what we can do to lessen the negative impacts of our carbon footprint. Climate change falls under the environmental pillar of sustainability, but there are three pillars in total: environment, social and economic. Another way to remember these pillars are the 3 Ps:

Planet (environmental)
People (social)
Profits (economic)

As individuals, we often think that any changes we make are not going to be enough to make an impact. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Our behaviours impact both our immediate and wider environments, even if we don’t immediately see the results of choices we have made. We might not even witness the benefits first-hand or even for years to come. However, it all adds up. In fact, to make any change at all, we all need to start taking more personal responsibility to improve sustainability.

Personal responsibilities

As individuals, there are several things you could look at to become more sustainable

Waste less food – organise your weekly meals for you and your family. This ensures you only buy what you need. It also gives your children an opportunity to be involved with the planning meaning they are more likely to eat what is provided and therefore, not waste anything.
Raise awareness – don’t shy away from conversations about the environment, particularly if you have children. They are likely to have covered the topic at school, so as a family you could decide on actions you are going to take to help the planet one day at a time.
Be a responsible consumer – shop local, buy Fairtrade, conflict free and cruelty free where you can. As Anna Lappé, educator, philanthropist and author said “every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”
Invest in ESG funds – if you have personal savings and investments with a financial advisor, you can request you invest in ESG funds. This is also known as sustainable investing and is a way to invest while positively impacting both society and the wider environment.
Donate – this doesn’t just have to be money. You can donate other unwanted items such as clothes and furniture.
Volunteer – if you have nothing to donate, you can donate your time, which is what volunteering is and will be a way to give back to a cause close to your heart or that you believe in.

Business responsibilities

In business, sustainability encompasses the entire supply chain from the CEO or board members who make decisions, right through to suppliers and even retailers. They all have a part to play however, as a business owner, there are a few basic places to start.

Minimise waste – identify and limit sources of waste, promoting recycling or aftermarket and avoiding landfill, enabling circular economy.
Avoid plastic – evaluate use of materials and consider total environmental burden, sourcing portfolio redesign for minimum total impact.
Supply chain transparency – eradicate child labour and modern slavery and audit your own suppliers’ labour practices
Take the stairs, cycle to work or encourage car-pooling
Switch to green energy where possible
Buy in bulk – reduce the number of orders required by buying more to save in the future. If you are a small business, can you unite with another, similar business to help reduce waste?
If your business invests, can you invest in ESG funds?
Collaborate with other businesses – can you use their waste product or offer them yours? After all, one business’s waste is another’s raw material.

We are all personally responsible for taking steps towards sustainability. We shouldn’t be coerced or forced into it – after all, any positive changes we make now will positively impact and directly affect the lives of our children’s children.

Whether we see the impact or not, one positive change can make ripples far beyond what we imagine.

For more about my professional and personal coaching packages, feel free to get in touch today and book your no obligation, 15-minute coffee and connect session!

How to become an EMS Leader

5th March 2021 , in Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics, Society, Sustainability, Uncategorised, YouTree

Growing into a successful EMS Leader

Do you have the passion to inspire and guide your organisation to take better responsibility for its environmental impact? Growing into an EMS leader doesn’t have to be daunting – it should be full of excitement and possibilities for both you and your team.

What qualities does a good EMS leader have?

Being a leader is to be willing to bring the best out in others. Therefore, being an EMS leader means you will be able to inspire, motivate and empower those around you. To achieve this, you will need to:

Develop relationships

Building trust within your team and creating a safe space for people to share ideas and provide feedback is essential. Your projects will have a higher chance of success if your team both enjoy and want to work with you. Allowing them the opportunity to contribute their ideas, without fear, will enhance your relationship and therefore the success of any projects you implement.

Have a vision

Having a vision for the future is the best way to lead your team to success. Your team will want to know where they are headed and as you develop your relationships, the team will be motivated to reach that goal and follow your lead.

Make decisions

Effective EMS leaders must have solid decision making skills. However, being able to come to decisions in a timely manner does not always mean you have to make the right decisions. In some cases, making an incorrect choice based on the data available is better than making a right decision that took a lot of unnecessary energy. After all, if you make an incorrect decision quickly, the sooner it can be rectified and you will most likely earn respect for your judgement call.

Be humble

As a leader, you are only as good as your team. Therefore, when you are successful, it is down to teamwork and not necessarily down to any individual. You also need to be able to listen to feedback and accept responsibility for failures rather than putting the blame onto others. Remember, people leave managers, not teams and so if you are going to retain talent, you need to create an environment where people feel valued and recognised.

How we can help you

While making the move from EMS manager to leader will feel out of your comfort zone, it is also a great opportunity and one that YouTree can help with.

Our course is the only UK & International course providing a practical guide with 1:1 support for EMS professionals.

Designed specifically for environmental & Q/HSE managers or advisors holding operational responsibility for maintaining and advancing the business’s EMS certification, the course is designed to challenge you to be the very best EMS leader you can be. Find out more here https://www.youtree.uk/ems-leadership-challenge/

You will be coached, provided with peer feedback and challenged to undertake a leadership influencing project within your own organisation.

What you’ll take away:

An understanding of what ‘leadership’ means in the context of ISO 14001:2015
An overview of what it takes to move to a higher level of EMS management/leadership
An understanding of key internal stakeholders and how best to engage their support
Communication tools to help you inspire, motivate and empower others
Useful techniques to engage your colleagues and senior management in a shared vision
A practical Action Plan that develops an EMS leadership auditable outcome

For more about my professional and personal coaching packages, get in touch today and book your no obligation coffee and connect session: hello@youtree.uk

Learn to Love Yourself ♥ HSEQ Manager? – This includes you too!

19th February 2021 , in Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics, Society, Sustainability, Uncategorised, YouTree

The Importance of Self Care for the HSEQ Manager ♥

Health and safety is your life. Not only are you responsible for the development and assessment of comprehensive health and safety management plans, you are also ready at a moment’s notice to react to any situation or emergency. You are constantly on the go: planning, preparing or managing situations.

However, the irony is, you are far more likely to neglect your own needs, in order to achieve your professional goals and targets. Therefore, looking after yourself is paramount to ensuring you continue to meet the demands of such a rigorous role. The importance of self care for the HSEQ manager should never be taken for granted.

I have been where you are and have felt the effects of taking my work home with me, not listening to my body or putting the demands of my work first. While sometimes it cannot be avoided, because emergencies do arise, practising regular self care routines can better prepare you for the stressful situations you will encounter and keep you grounded. So what can you do to look after mental and physical health both in and out of the work environment?

Reconnect with nature

Nature can heal, soothe and restore our physical and mental wellbeing. Exposure to the outdoors has a powerful effect on the way we function as human beings and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Being in nature or simply viewing nature, can ease stress, reduce anxiety, heighten positive emotions as well as helping us think more clearly.

Go for lunchtime walks or runs
Have a bird feeder outside your window to encourage nature to come to you
Have plants in your office
Take business calls outside where possible
Eat lunch outside

Don’t be a slave to your phone

In an age when we can see our work emails on our phones, ask yourself if you ever truly switch off from work? Are you always available? Do people call you after hours when you should be spending time with your family? If the answer is yes, it’s likely to be because you’ve responded to emails at that time before. If people know you are going to reply, they are going to email you at all hours.

Being able to switch off from work doesn’t mean you can’t think about it though; it simply means you create a safe space where work won’t interrupt you unnecessarily. It means you can devote more time to yourself, what you enjoy and those you love.

Set up the ‘do not disturb’ function on your phone
Only allow your phone to receive calls from emergency numbers after certain times
Don’t respond to emails after a certain time; this will lead to a reduction in the amount of emails you actually receive after work hours

Stay hydrated

Drinking plenty of water has both a mental and physical benefit which in turn, can boost our performance at work and our quality of life.

Drinking enough water will:

Prevent fatigue and confusion
Rid your body of toxins
Decrease your susceptibility to depression
Improve the look and feel of your skin and joints
Boost your mood
Improve memory
Help reduce sugar cravings
Increase blood flow around the body

Adopt a good morning and night-time routine to aid sleep

Setting yourself up for a good night’s sleep can actually start the moment you wake up. Feeling like you’re off to a good start for the day can make us more efficient at work, which leads to positive feelings of productivity and in turn, produce those all important ‘feel good’ chemicals in our brains.

A morning routine can involve anything such as getting up and preparing the kids for school, going for a dog walk, doing a pilates session or simply answering the emails you ignored the night before.

Then when you get home from work, you might read a book, cook, exercise or help the children with their homework. Whatever you do, adopting a regular pre and post work schedule will help your mind and body relax and in turn, help you sleep more soundly.

As a certified energy leadership life and executive business coach, I offer personal one-to-one coaching to share the power of energetic connection. I help people thrive by finding a deeper connection to the natural environment which in turn helps them deliver more and stress less.

For more about my professional and personal coaching packages, get in touch today and book your no obligation, 20-minute discovery session: hello@youtree.uk

Why sustainable procurement should be at the top of your sustainability strategy

11th February 2021 , in Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics, Society, Sustainability, Uncategorised, YouTree

Why sustainable procurement should be at the top of your sustainability strategy

Procurement is perhaps one of the most important areas any business should consider if it wants to positively impact change on a wider level. Sustainability is a broad term that means different things to different people. However, at its core, sustainability is about driving positive changes in both our immediate and wider environments that is much more than just climate change and carbon emissions. So, here’s why sustainable procurement should be at the top of your sustainability strategy.

What is sustainable procurement?

Sustainable procurement means ensuring your business only purchases products and services that have the lowest environmental impact and the most positive social results.

Of course, doing good has an ability to make a business look good too, so while changes to procurement processes can appear costly to implement, they can also yield great returns.

Every single business has a procurement process that it could make more sustainable if it chose to. This is because every business has a supply chain, whether sourcing products from suppliers or outsourcing elements of work to contractors and subcontractors. Regardless of whether you have one or 100 suppliers or contractors, your supply chain is likely to be the largest source of your environmental and social impact.

Where to start

If you are just starting out on your sustainability journey, or looking to make further improvements, here are some considerations you can make today.

Establish KPIs

The right KPIs allow you to deliver measurable, tangible sustainability results, where and when they matter. After all, if you don’t have data, you can’t measure and improve performance.

Areas you could look to measure and improve are:

Orders – the number of orders, orders made late/on time and the time between identifying the need for an order and when orders were placed.
Transportation – average distance for supply orders or number of unnecessary supplier journeys through lack of planning.
Shipment receipt – number of deliveries, number of deliveries arriving later than required or quantity of damaged deliveries leading to collection and additional orders.
Utilities – water consumption, energy consumption, electric consumption or use of recycled energy.
The type and amount of packaging. Is it made from recycled material and how much plastic are you using. Is your packaging reusable or readily recyclable?
Suppliers – number of suppliers, share of suppliers with ISO14001 certification, number of onsite accidents at supplier locations.

Thinking about these types of KPIs can help businesses turn their ambition of more sustainable procurement into practical actions and therefore, into results.

Segment your suppliers

Make a list of all your suppliers, contractors and subcontractors and order them accordingly in terms of their potential impact on your sustainability performance.

Start with those who can contribute positively to your efforts. Take into account their practices around sustainability issues such as:

Waste minimisation – identifying and limiting sources of waste, promoting recycling or aftermarket and avoiding landfill, enabling circular economy.
Plastic avoidance – materials evaluation considering total environmental burden, sourcing portfolio redesign for minimum total impact.

Supply chain transparency – eradication of child labour and modern slavery and auditing their own suppliers’ labour practices.

Plan for the long term

Evaluate what is necessary and essential to your business over the long term. Sustainability itself needs to be sustainable and therefore isn’t a short-term fix.

With regards to sustainable procurement, look at what is required for your business processes to run as efficiently as possible and the equipment needed to deliver your product or service:

Do you need it? Is it a must have or essential to business?
Research technology – are there better products and equipment you can use to reduce such as 3D printing?
Can you buy in bulk to reduce the number of orders required? If you are a small business, can you unite with another, similar business to help reduce waste?
What products can be refillable?
Can you collaborate with another business to either use their waste product or offer them yours? After all, one business’s waste is another’s raw material.

For more ideas around how to improve your sustainable procurement for your business, get in touch with YouTree today.

We can help your business impact environmental and social changes on both your immediate and wider environments. Our tailored packages can help change employee mindset, empowering them to drive change in both the workplace and at home.

Having worked in target-driven environments ourselves means we can help find ways for your business to increase value and reduce cost.

To book a no obligation, 20-minute discovery session, email hello@youtree.uk

I Brought a webcam today….. What a waste Logitech!

24th May 2019 , in Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics, Society, Sustainability

Becoming more sustainable is about challenging wastes, and recognising where applying Lean Thinking can positively affect our organisations. Where we ignore wastes, we create impacts – negative impacts to both our bottom line, and on our environment.
We’ve come a long way since electronic consumables needed a CD driver to enable them to work. Plug and play has made our lives so much easier. Unfortunately in this case the manufacturer could use some help with Lean Mindset to develop the symbiotic link to reducing both cost and environmental impact when changes to product design occur!
The webcam I bought yesterday was much smaller than I was expecting. The box was 3 times bigger than the device – it was still sized to accommodate the non existent CD, with spacer cardboard packaging taking up the emptiness inside. A great example of a change taking place in one area of the web-cam manufacturer, and not being reflected in another. The excess packaging isn’t just a cost to the producer, it’s a cost to the consumer who pays for waste management but also to our environment, especially as the webcam had been imported from China. Transporting the 66% additional empty space required to accommodate the non existent CD plus the additional weight of the cardboard spacer packaging all add up to unnecessary carbon emissions. What a waste of resources!
Considering where wastes occur in our businesses is critical to ensuring we remain competitive whilst reducing our environmental footprint and engaging with our customers. It’s about embracing and planning for changes, and being agile enough to react proactively.

A waste free business, is a more sustainable business!

Want to find out more? We’re running a workshop to help you recognise wastes in your organisation. Take a look at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/process-improvement-sustainability-seminar-tickets-58718094401?utm_term=eventurl_text for help to implement Lean and sustainability practises in your organisation.