10 Steps to Becoming a Carbon Neutral Business

Page 36 STEP 10: CELEBRATE AND SHARE Celebrate and share STEP 10 Congratulations! Hopefully, you have just gone carbon neutral. Depending on the resources available, it may have been challenging to communicate your program while at the same time implementing it. Ideally, however, you would have engaged key stakeholders throughout your carbon neutrality journey, as described in Step 5 “Get people engaged”. After achieving your target, you should build on the engagement you have already done and plug the gaps for topics you have not yet been able to discuss. Make sure to announce and celebrate that you achieved your target. You have done something great and now possess key insights that you did not have before. You will, for instance, know how much you have saved while going carbon neutral. You will also have experience of going carbon neutral and therefore the lessons learned during the process. In other words, you are now able to announce your achievement, share the lessons learned and inspire the rest of the world. Employees remain a key audience to engage especially after you have reached your target. Working for a company that has a purpose beyond profit can be a highly motivating factor for employees. As such, working for a carbon neutral company could generate a strong sense of pride in the employee base that you should try to tap into as much as possible. You have a unique opportunity to make your employees ambassadors of the program and able to articulate clearly what carbon neutrality is and why it is important to your business. If they talk willingly about your collective achievement and with their own enthusiasm, it is more authentic and effective. External audiences are also very important. It is worth remembering the overall bigger picture here – it is not about your company alone, the climate challenge is for everyone to address. Of course, you should claim the full reputational benefits of going carbon neutral which is still far from the mainstream, but use the opportunity to inspire others to follow your lead.