How Can Small Businesses Actually Measure Their Carbon Footprint Without a Big Budget?

What Are the 3 Essential Steps for Building a Profitable Green Start-Up?

Starting a green business? Learn how Juliet Davenport, founder of Good Energy, balances purpose and profit. Discover practical strategies for managing sustainable supply chains, reducing scope 3 emissions, and avoiding common “greenwashing” pitfalls to build a truly eco-friendly brand.

Stop guessing about sustainability and start building a business that lasts. Read the full summary to unlock Juliet Davenport’s specific roadmap for creating an ethical company that satisfies customers, investors, and the planet.

Recommendation

Juliet Davenport offers a solid guidebook for green start-ups. Honored with an OBE for her groundbreaking work in the field of energy, she provides solid, detailed advice for applying your values to the way you handle a variety of business concerns. She goes into great depth not only on strictly environmental matters but also on imbuing your firm with mission and purpose, treating your employees properly, financing your operations intelligently, and establishing a sustainable supply chain. Starting a business that makes money and doesn’t harm the planet can be challenging, but Davenport explains how to deliver a satisfying combination of profit and purpose.

Take-Aways

• Entrepreneurs who pursue profit and environmentalism face a lonely quest.
• The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are a path toward a healthier, more sustainable Earth.
• Heed Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives.
• Most green start-up entrepreneurs are “conscious consumers” who buy ethical, responsible products.
• Green firms can’t solve the world’s environmental problems alone.
• Green start-ups can take a variety of uncomplicated, environmentally responsible actions.
• You cannot monitor and measure everything.
• When green start-ups work smart, they can have a positive environmental impact.

Summary

Entrepreneurs who pursue profit and environmentalism face a lonely quest.

Entrepreneurs are almost always totally on their own, without the support of a corporation or someone with deep pockets who can come to the rescue. New entrepreneurs face a steep learning curve, particularly when their business plans include the mission of creating a green company.

“Purpose-led businesses face specific challenges, but to bring an established order to the tipping point of change, the first rule is to stay in business. According to government figures, fewer than half of all start-ups make it beyond five years.”

Green entrepreneurs seek to make a good living while trying to counter the effects of deadly climate change. Green firms share the same overall goals: Promote change and sustainability to keep global warming at bay. They champion eco-entrepreneurship as they make a difference in keeping the world from danger and destruction. No matter what their specific field of endeavor is, entrepreneurs are people of talent, energy, and imagination. And many of them believe they can make the world a better, safer place.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are a path toward a healthier, more sustainable Earth.

In 2015, the United Nations issued 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) it hopes the world will achieve by 2030. Its SDG Impact Standards offer guidance for entrepreneurs seeking to incorporate sustainable practices into their companies. The SDG goals are a “call to action” for working collaboratively to make the world more hospitable and habitable.

“Climate action isn’t about thinking, it’s about doing. It’s about having agency and nurturing and feeding good practice.” (Alison Tickell, founder and CEO, Julie’s Bicycle)

As the UN points out, sustainability involves all aspects of human life and the well-being of all life forms. In addressing these concerns, the quest for sustainability must encompass the big issues the UN lists among its goals: “no poverty; zero hunger; good health and well-being; quality education; gender equality; clean water and sanitation; affordable and clean energy; decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation, and infrastructure; reduced inequalities; sustainable cities and communities; responsible consumption and production; climate action; protection of life below water; protection of life on land; peace, justice, and strong institutions; [and] partnerships.” These goals are an essential blueprint for climate action that can lead to a more sustainable future.

Heed Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives.

Many businesses are waking up to the climate issues that now confront organizations of all kinds. A dichotomy has arisen between businesspeople who merely give public relations nods to Environmental, Social, and Governance standards and Corporate Social Responsibility goals, and those who actually put them into action.

Many entrepreneurs seem to embrace CSR and ESG ideas that reflect positively on their image, but too few trust that a new business can have an impact as a legitimate change agent – although it certainly can. Smaller, newer companies are often more agile. They are faster decision-makers and more flexible operators who are trying to become adept at incorporating their sustainability beliefs into their business.

“Other than your blood, sweat, and very likely some tears, it’s typical that your initial round of funding [for your green start-up] will come from friends and family…or perhaps a trusted network you’ve amassed along the way.”

However, responsibly adhering to CSR and ESG standards can be challenging. For example, consider a company that regularly donates to CSR and ESG causes and participates in environmental programs, but receives raw materials from a supplier that employs child labor. Another firm installs solar panels on its roof, unaware that the manufacturer of the panels routinely dumps silicon tetrachloride, a poisonous by-product, into its town’s fields and streams.

If you are starting a green business, do your research about your suppliers, and then steadily implement whatever environmentally friendly practices you can directly control. These can include using energy intelligently, limiting emissions, and selecting the least polluting way to transport your products. When you set green goals for your new company, focus on “science-based…or net-zero targets.”

“As awareness grows of the climate emergency, buyers and users increasingly want businesses to contribute to solving the problems of people and planet.”

Like every other commercial enterprise, green start-ups must make money. This requires eco-entrepreneurs to create superb products or services, deliver them efficiently, and build a solid customer base – all in ways that declare the new company’s environmental awareness.

Most green start-up entrepreneurs are “conscious consumers” who buy ethical, responsible products.

Most green entrepreneurs begin as conscious consumers and sound businesspeople who demand the maximum possible return from their products or services. They make environmentally conscious, ethical purchasing decisions, and seek buyers who are on their wavelength – those who prefer to spend their money on products and services that are sustainable.

“What does sustainability actually mean?…it’s not a straightforward concept. And getting to a quality level of sustainability isn’t passive. It’s all about climate action and believing we have the agency to ‘do’ something.”

Yvon Chouinard, 85 – the founder of Patagonia, the highly respected outdoor clothing company – exemplifies a farseeing, environmentally responsible entrepreneur. For example, Patagonia used to sell the steel pitons that climbers pound into rocky cliffs to anchor themselves during their climbs. Later, in an acknowledgment that steel pitons can damage cliff faces, Patagonia quit selling them. Instead, it sells aluminum chocks that enable mountain climbers to pursue their sport without doing any damage to the mountains they climb. Today, Patagonia sells only products that do no “unnecessary harm to the environment.” The United Nations presented Patagonia with its 2019 Champion of the Earth award.

Green firms can’t solve the world’s environmental problems alone.

Businesses – including green start-ups – cannot create long-term sustainability and address environmental harm by themselves. Governments, nongovernmental agencies (NGO), nonprofits, and private organizations worldwide must step up and take action. “Purpose-led businesses,” working together, can make a big difference.

“It is values that guide people, but habits that define how people put those values into practice. So, if the most important aspect of the start-up business is its purpose, let’s start there.”

Consider, for example, Ocean Bottle, which manufactures fully recyclable water bottles in the United Kingdom. Every Ocean Bottle purchase pays for gathering 1,000 discarded plastic bottles before they become adrift in the sea. Ocean Bottle’s goal for 2025 is to prevent seven billion plastic bottles from being dumped in the world’s oceans.

Olio, another UK firm, features an imaginative “food-waste app.” Olio connects hungry people with food that others would throw away. In the United Kingdom, the typical family disposes of perfectly edible food worth £700 each year. This works out to people annually throwing away 12.5 billion pounds of food. Olio helps reclaim more than five million food portions, and ensures that those portions feed hungry people.

Green start-ups can take a variety of uncomplicated, environmentally responsible actions.

Leaders must stop viewing CSR and ESG as incidental add-ons. All companies — particularly start-ups that want to institutionalize green practices from the beginning — must prioritize these initiatives and make sustainability integral to everything they do. Having “economics and the environment” support one another leads to productive action and positive business outcomes, such as becoming hyperefficient and eliminating expensive waste.

“See the workspace as a holistic whole…look at ways you can make the space more energy-efficient and people-friendly.”

If you own the building where you operate, you can do a great deal – an energy audit so you know where to make improvements, better insulation, airtight windows, renewable energy, reduced energy use, and even potential carbon offsets – but renters also can take meaningful measures. First, turn off all machines and equipment when no one is using them. Turn off computer monitors and light switches. Because laptops consume less energy than full-size desktop computers, switch to laptops where feasible. Use energy-efficient light bulbs, preferably LEDs. Use recycled materials and furnishings, reuse or recycle packaging, discourage food waste, and engage everyone in environmentally sound practices.

Consider becoming a B Corp, that is, adopting a legal structure that emphasizes “governance, community, workers, environment, and customers.”

Your commitment to your employees is crucial in becoming an authentic purpose-driven company. Your values should inform each step of your employees’ journeys within your firm, from the way you recruit and hire, through onboarding and establishing work patterns and processes,

“In collaborative workplaces, building psychological safety can be a driver of high-quality decision-making, better interpersonal relationships, and increased innovation…this resilient foundation…can unlock flexibility and dynamism.”

Your employees need equitable treatment, psychological safety, solutions that address their challenges, opportunities to collaborate, useful feedback, fair rewards, available training, and a clear growth path.

You cannot monitor and measure everything.

No company can stay on top of every aspect of its operations. You can’t possibly monitor and “measure everything all of the time.” Instead, take a holistic approach to your organization’s environmental practices.

“The point at which there is a balance between the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere…hangs perilously in the balance.”

Focus on reducing your most noticeable and most controllable emissions. From comprehensive emission measurements to energy use statistics, information is the lynchpin of environmentally supportive business decisions. Intelligent data management calls for these steps.

• Target your primary sources of energy use and accompanying environmental pollution.
• Rely on verifiable data, not estimates. Inspect your invoices for electricity, gas, water, and fuel.
• Employ an easily accessible spreadsheet that enables your firm to understand the numbers quickly.
• Amass complete data for each year.
• Monitor performance and all relevant data.
• Segment “consumption, targets, and progress” according to your company’s divisions.
• Publish your data.

If necessary, adjust your business model to achieve maximum CSR and ESG effectiveness. No company, no matter how environmentally responsible, can have a dramatic impact overnight.

“In an ideal scenario, purpose should sit at the very heart of a business and inform everything that business does.”

What you can’t do today, you may be able to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or 10 years hence.

When green start-ups work smart, they can have a positive environmental impact.

Green start-ups should focus first on emissions, energy use, and transportation – the “scope three” impacts – to achieve a quick, positive effect on the environment. Generally, these are factors you can often, though not always, control. To achieve quality monitoring and measurement, seek the most advanced technologies you can afford, particularly sensors that gather accurate input data.

Controlling the environmental actions of outside firms in your value chain is more difficult. Improving the environment and supporting sustainability must be a collective effort. Engage with your suppliers and other allied companies to help them reduce their emissions and waste.

“Greening your business…will create cost efficiencies elsewhere. The planet wins with renewables every time.”

Pay attention to the impact of each step in your manufacturing and shipping processes, as well as the “life-cycle emissions” of your products. Take a long, hard look at your supply chain. What different source materials, services, and components could you purchase that would be less ecologically harmful? As you develop your customer base, educate your clientele about your environmental activities and the steps they can take to minimize their environmental impact. Use your advertising and other outreach communications to stress the need to “reduce, reuse, and repair.”

As a green start-up entrepreneur, increase the power of your example by using networking and public relations to spread the message of green business, including writing articles, giving speeches, and creating green blogs. Depending on your ambitions, you may want to become involved in politics and government to further power your ability to shape the future.

About the Author

Juliet Davenport, OBE, founded the company Good Energy, which twice received the Sunday Times Best Green Company award. She formerly hosted the Great Green Questions podcast, the basis for this book, which she wrote with journalist Helena Drakakis.