Resolutions – are yours still going?

With February drawing near, for many those well-intentioned New Year resolutions are already distant memories. Whether it was to get in shape, cut down on chocolate or read more books, the majority of us will be struggling to keep up with our optimistic aims for 2010.

Resolutions should not just be for personal improvement however; they should also consider ways in which to improve our businesses. This applies to the business owner as well as all of the company stakeholders - and 2010’s business resolutions should be eco inspired. Here at Re-Sourceful, we have a number of ambitions for the New Year and our no.1 goal is to help more businesses promote themselves in the correct way – which is relevant, ethical and eco aware.

Here are a few suggestions that your company could resolve to achieve in 2010 to get your business greener:
1. Get an audit – review your company’s energy use, wastage, recycling and look at the alternatives. Simple, eco and cost-effective measures can be introduced for most business operations making your business a more sustainable one. http://www.c-changesc.org/
2. Look at your suppliers – do they employ ethical and eco practices in supplying their products and services? If not, switch to someone who does.
3. Do your desk research – when considering your suppliers remember your basic stationery. Pens, usb’s, staplers, rubbers, notepads, mousemats – they can all be green.
4. Encourage employee participation – any green resolution has a greater chance of succeeding if your employees buy into it. Or better still; suggest it in the first place. Encouraging your employees to suggest the eco aims of the organisation and then making these part of your sustainability plan, proves you mean business.
5. Company travel schemes – incentivise employees to get out of their car and find an alternative way to work one day a week. 1 in every 2 of us drives to work each and every day. If we all left our cars at home for just one day a week and used public transport, rode our bike or walked instead we would have cleaner air to breathe, less traffic, and a smaller carbon footprint to boot. http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/

So if your struggling to maintain your personal resolutions why not focus on your business ones? Re-Sourceful can help you in achieving a number of greener business objectives and where we can’t we can normally recommend someone who can.

Please give us a call if we can help you in 2010 and use this blog to share your company’s green business objectives for this year.

Bruce Almighty

One of our favourite people at the moment is Bruce Parry. Not only have some of us harboured a healthy respect for him since the first series of Tribe, but last week he came to a book-signing session at one of our local bookshops, and since then, admittedly, that respect has become more of an unhealthy obsession.

In Bruce’s latest series, Amazon, he has travelled the length of the largest river in the world, living with shamans, cowboys, loggers, gold prospectors and conservationists.
His aim was to understand the importance of this great eco-system to the people who rely on it for survival, the impact of economic ‘development’ on the land and people, and the significance of their destruction to the rest of the world.

The Amazon is home to many of the world’s most precious commodities, such as gold, oil and timber, and naturally, there are many parties trying to capitalise on this wealth. In episode 5, Bruce and the team spend a few days with the LPA, a research group dedicated to understanding the interaction between the Amazon forest and the regional and global atmospheres. These scientists are trying to re-value the Amazon in a revolutionary way, as a carbon sink, in order to protect it from further destruction.

As awareness of climate change continues to build, we have begun to get used to the idea of trading in carbon. The Amazon rainforest could play a crucial role in the fight against climate change, if only we valued it properly.

Is it possible that we can change the things we do and do not consider valuable? It would require a global shift from coveting material possessions and wealth towards an emphasis on human life, the environment and a collective ambition to create a more sustainable world. According to research groups, that is exactly what is happening. Generation Y, those born between 1978 and 1998, already have a value system completely different from the generations before them. According to a study by workforce consultancy Talentsmoothie, this new generation of graduates ‘place more emphasis on quality of life than money, and are prepared to resign if their jobs are not fulfilling enough, with decent holidays and the opportunity to take long stretches off for charity work or travel’.

It remains to be seen whether this attitude can survive a recession, however, as awareness of global issues grows, surely our sense of global citizenship must grow too, and with that our desire to make a positive difference to the world.

And that is where people like our friend Bruce Parry come in, with the passion and the tools to inspire a generation of people about to make their mark on the business world of tomorrow.
As Bruce puts it, until we put more value on the things we take for granted – the environment, our cultural diversity, each other’s wellbeing – we will continue to destroy them.

www.bbc.co.uk/amazon

http://www.talentsmoothie.com/